Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, 1888

Image courtesy: Johnson & Johnson Archives

Johnson & Johnson published Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, which quickly became the standard manual on sterile surgery. The guide included step-by-step directions on how to perform sterile operations and a catalog of company products to aid in safe surgery. Johnson & Johnson sales people then distributed the guide across the United States to retail pharmacists, doctors, and surgeons. Within a matter of months, they’d disseminated about 85,000 copies. In the years that followed, Modern Methods was translated into three languages and 4.5 million copies were circulated worldwide.