Kilmer House

Throughout its history, Johnson & Johnson has been known for developing and making products in response to needs in society…such as the first commercially available sterile surgical dressings.  Occasionally, though, the Company produced a product that helped fill a more unusual need in society.  One early product filled not a health care need, but a fashion craze.  And that product was…Beauty Spots.    

Beauty Spots were small pieces of material – usually black silk or sometimes velvet – with adhesive on the back.  They were most commonly shaped like small stars, crescents, arrows, hearts or circles.  Beauty Spots were used by women to attract attention to the complexion or an outstanding facial feature, such as the eyes, mouth, or a dimple.  They would stick the product on their faces near whatever facial feature they wanted to accentuate.  Occasionally, according to sources, women would use a number of them at once, which gave them the unfortunate appearance of having broken out in oddly shaped spots. 

In 1915, the Company wrote:

“To supply the demand created by this fashion we have arranged an assortment of designs consisting of stars, crescents, arrow points, hearts, etc., which are put up in envelopes, each containing 100 spots (3 dozen on a card); also in fancy boxes containing 300 assorted.”  [RED CROSS MESSENGER p. 286, March 1915, Vol. VII, No. 10.]

It was typical of Johnson & Johnson that, rather than just putting the product on the market (where it was bought by fashion-conscious women), the people at the Company felt the need to provide some education and background about its Beauty Spots.  So Fred Kilmer wrote about them in the March, 1915 issue of THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, the Johnson & Johnson publication for the retail druggists who sold our products.

According to Fred Kilmer, Beauty Spots were worn in Ancient Rome and Egypt, and there was a beauty spot fad in 17th century France during the reign of Louis XIII, and in England during the reign of Queen Anne.  Kilmer included an illustration from an old treatise on Beauty Spots (shown below) that shows someone wearing a number of them at once, including an elaborate horse-drawn carriage running entirely across her forehead!

RED CROSS MESSENGER Reproduction of Old Illustration Showing Beauty Spots in Use

Johnson & Johnson made Beauty Spots out of materials left over from making plasters.  Since 1887, Johnson & Johnson had been making Court Plasters, which had the same origins but were the more practical cousin to Beauty Spots.  To confuse matters, Beauty Spots were sometimes referred to as Court Plasters, a name that goes back to their origins in the royal courts of Europe.  They had been used by court women, who set the fashions in their day.  According to Fred Kilmer, Court Plasters started out as fashion statements, before being used by the masses to cover small cuts and scratches. 

Court Plasters were small and adhesive, and came in little pocket-sized sheets that could be cut to size to cover up a small scrape or cut.  They were made of luxurious materials like silk and taffeta, and came in a variety of colors.  (A tradition that was later continued by BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages!) 

Continuing the Court Plaster Tradition?

Johnson & Johnson also made Court Plasters from isinglass, a material derived from fish scales.

Cotolia Liquid Court Plaster

Oddly enough, the Company also made a liquid Court Plaster to put over small wounds, which sounds a lot like this modern product.  (You will need to scroll down to the second product on the page.)

Fred Kilmer attributed the revival of Beauty Spots to the revival of little “vanity boxes” that could be carried in a purse.  They contained a mirror and could hold small items, such as a sheet of Beauty Spots. 

Beauty Spots Packaging, Product and Vanity Boxes

The Company provided educational background not just on its lifesaving products, but on its more unusual products as well, and Beauty Spots were no exception.  Why?  So that the druggists selling the products would understand them and be knowledgeable enough to answer the public’s questions. 

Dental floss has been called “the new duct tape” (a product that also has a tie to Johnson & Johnson!) because of its many inventive uses by consumers.  As bizarre as some of these uses may be, the product’s origins are equally unusual, and they go back not only to the beginnings of Johnson & Johnson, but to the early days of one of its medical devices affiliate companies as well.

Although people have apparently been using things to clean between their teeth since prehistoric times, this article in American Heritage explains that dental floss was officially invented somewhere around 1819 by a dentist  (who else?) from Vermont named Levi Spear Parmly.  Parmly recommended his invention as one of the three tools (the other being a toothbrush and a dentifrice – that’s a tooth-cleaning preparation) for preventing tooth decay.  According to American Heritage, many Americans at that time lacked an inexpensive tooth powder, so they cleaned their teeth with two common items known for their abrasive qualities:  salt and, amazingly enough, gunpowder.  Even after tooth powder (the forerunner of tooth paste) came into use, people still didn’t use dental floss.  Ordinary household sewing thread wasn’t strong enough to withstand the wear and tear of getting it between a person’s teeth, and the stronger silk dental floss was hard to get and too expensive.  So people augmented their tooth care by using the sharpened ends of quills or slivers of wood to clean between their teeth.

Codman & Shurtleff, 1800s

The first recorded patent for dental floss was issued in 1874 to Asahel M. Shurtleff.  Shurtleff was a partner in a Massachusetts medical devices company called Codman & Shurtleff, which became part of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in 1964 and remains a part of it today.  Codman & Shurtleff started marketing unwaxed silk dental floss in 1882, according to American Heritage Magazine.

Early Suture Products

But it was Johnson & Johnson that first made dental floss widely available.  And the reason for that?  Sterile sutures.   Since 1887 sterile sutures were a part of the Company’s product line, and they were a natural outgrowth of the founders’ mission to provide the first mass-produced sterile dressings for surgery.  Catgut and silk were the most common suture materials, and the Company bought silk in quantity to use in the manufacture of sterile sutures.  The Johnson brothers were always looking for ways to improve public health, and they had the idea of taking the leftover silk that wasn’t used in suture production and making a dental floss that could be produced in quantity and packaged to make it affordable.  In keeping with its origins in the Company’s suture product lines, there was even a Lister Dental Floss that was impregnated with an antiseptic.

Lister Dental Floss Ad and Product, 1913

The Company advertised dental floss by placing counter displays in drug stores, along with a variety of ads and show cards that were displayed by druggists.  This display ad from 1914 shows an illustration of a woman vigorously flossing her teeth, and would have been displayed on a drugstore counter.  The actual tins of dental floss are attached to the bottom of the ad.

Dental Floss Ad from 1914, “Better Than Toothpicks”

The July, 1898 Johnson & Johnson price list listed plain and waxed silk floss in 12 and 24 yard spools.  It was initially packaged in flat round metal containers, and then cylindrical tins that held a small amount of floss.  The packages had a built-in cutting device so that people could conveniently get the amount of floss they needed.  In the Nineteen-teens, the Company packaged dental floss in a glass container, still with the same metal cutter for cutting the floss.  

In 1941, due to the demand for silk to make parachutes for World War II, the Company switched to nylon for its dental floss.

Though the packaging design has been modernized over the years, moving from metal to glass to plastic, the basic concept of most dental floss packaging is still the same as it was over 100 years ago – floss wound around a spool, with a small metal cutter on the package.

Early Pocket Dental Floss Package with Built-In Cutter

In the beginning of this post, I mentioned that there was a connection between Johnson & Johnson and duct tape.  What was it?  Stay tuned for a future post on that subject.

Charles Heber Clark, A Very Literary Board Member 

Which former member of the Johnson & Johnson Board of Directors was once ranked alongside Mark Twain as a humorist?  And what did that have to do with the Company’s first acquisition – of a medical devices company?  

That board member was Charles Heber Clark (1841-1915), who wrote under the pen name Max Adeler.  Clark was a former music critic, newspaper writer and widely-read author of short stories and novels.  It has even been argued that one of his stories inspired Mark Twain to write A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s’ Court. 

Charles Heber Clark was born on July 11, 1841 in Maryland.  He served in the Union Army for two years during the Civil War, and in 1865 he became a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Clark moved rapidly from local reporting to editorials and book reviews, to becoming the paper’s drama and music critic.  He also began writing short stories and, if that wasn’t enough, he was an expert writer on economic subjects.  Clark also managed to find the time to teach Sunday school.  In one of his classes was a boy named J. Ellwood Lee, the son of a local mill worker.  Clark saw the potential in Lee and helped him get his first job at a surgical instruments manufacturer.  Years later, a successful Lee returned the favor by making Clark one of the directors of his company. 

Clark’s first of many books, Out of the Hurly-Burly, was published in 1874.  It became an instant international success and established Clark as one of the leading humorists of his day.  According to Fred Kilmer, “Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria enjoyed the book so much that he decorated the author with a gold medal.”  [RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vol. VIII, Sept 1915, Nos. 3 & 4 frontspiece]

J. Ellwood Lee

Charles Heber Clark’s association with Johnson & Johnson began in 1905 when the Company acquired Clark’s old pupil’s company:  the J. Ellwood Lee Company of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. 

Mack’s Kidney Plaster, one of the J. Ellwood Lee Company products gained in the acquisition of the company. 

The J. Ellwood Lee Company sold sutures, ligatures, medicinal plasters, catheters, and other medical products.  Robert Wood Johnson, who always kept a close eye on the competition, wrote to J. Ellwood Lee in frustration, because Lee had the habit of cutting prices to beat his competition.  Johnson wrote:  “If you follow the start you have made, in a short time you will be giving away goods and paying people to take them.  When you get tired of this fun, come down to Cape May, take a bath and cool off.”  [Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel, by Lawrence G. Foster, pp. 99-100]

Robert Wood Johnson

So Robert Wood Johnson made a deal to acquire Lee’s company for Johnson & Johnson stock, the Company’s first major acquisition.  Under the agreement, each company would continue to issue its own product catalogues, although they would now list each other’s products.  Lee and two others (one of whom was Charles Heber Clark) would join the Johnson & Johnson board of directors.   Fred Kilmer was also appointed to the board of directors in the same year, in recognition of his innumerable contributions to the success of Johnson & Johnson.  Clark did some writing for Johnson & Johnson as well, but it was wasn’t the usual humor or fiction that he was known for:  he collaborated with Fred Kilmer on a booklet called “Handbook of Ligatures,” which earned wide acceptance by hospitals and surgeons.

Clark served on the Johnson & Johnson board from 1905 to 1915.  He was an in-demand speaker and was often called on to speak at the major political gatherings of his day.  In contrast to his reputation for humorous and often satirical stories, Clark’s speeches were always serious and, as Fred Kilmer delicately put it, “freighted with statistics.”

Incidentally, J. Ellwood Lee’s house still stands, and serves today as the Conshohocken, Pennsylvania Borough Hall.  This site has a picture of the house.

Although many of Clark’s books are out of print, some of them are still available.  If you’re interested in reading one of Clark’s short stories, it can be downloaded here, as can one of his books.