Mother using Johnson & Johnson First Aid supplies to care for one of her children, 1917, from our archives.

Johnson & Johnson has made products used for and by mothers for over 100 years, such as maternity kits and health information to make childbirth safer, and baby products, wound care and first aid products used to care for children.  In fact, it was a consumer idea – likely from women consumers – that led to JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder in 1894, and to the Company’s entire baby products business.  JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder quickly became a trusted product in households, and parents – mothers and fathers – wrote to Johnson & Johnson and sent pictures of their babies and toddlers posing with JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder tins on a regular basis during the early 1900s.

Babies posing with JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder tins, from our archives

The Company has acknowledged its special relationship with mothers and fathers in a variety of ways over the years.  One of those ways has been through advertising.

Wonderful Mother ad from 1922

One of the first Johnson & Johnson ads featuring a mother and children was the Wonderful Mother ad of 1922, still one of our most popular print ads even though it’s 90 years old.  The ad, inspired by a quote from none other than Abraham Lincoln, celebrated the special role that mothers play in their children’s lives.  The ad struck a chord with the public and, since then, mothers and babies have been a feature of our consumer advertising.

Fragile...Handle with JOHNSON’S® ad from the 1950s, from our archives

Undated ad for JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder, featuring a mother and baby, from our archives

JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder ad from the early 1980s featuring a mom and baby

Here’s the latest television ad in that long tradition:

Happy Mother’s Day!

At this year’s meeting, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William Weldon is passing the role of Chief Executive Officer to Alex Gorsky.   (Mr. Weldon remains our Chairman of the Board.)  This continues a tradition of leadership transitions that dates back to our very first one in 1910.

Alex Gorsky

Alex Gorsky is Johnson & Johnson’s seventh Chief Executive Officer, and our ninth leader overall.  (Our first two leaders had the title of president.)

Robert Wood Johnson

Company founder Robert Wood Johnson was our first president.  Johnson had been a partner in Seabury & Johnson before starting Johnson & Johnson.  When he and his brothers left that company in 1885, he saw first-hand what could happen to an organization with strong leadership but without strong management depth, and he was determined not to let that happen at Johnson & Johnson.  Based on the knowledge he had gained from his years of experience in business, he made sure that the new company had a strong reserve of leadership so that it could survive without him and his brothers.  He built what today we would call a leadership pipeline to ensure that Johnson & Johnson had strong, steady management.  He also made sure that Johnson & Johnson looked ahead and that the growing business reflected and adapted to whatever changes were on the horizon, a legacy we carry on today with our focus on managing for the long term.

Interior of the Johnson & Johnson office, 1895, from our archives

During Robert Wood Johnson’s tenure, the Company managed successfully through two major depressions (1893 and 1907) and grew steadily and rapidly.  Aside from the Johnson brothers, Johnson & Johnson had a number of very strong leaders, and the Company was able to weather economic downturns and the departure of Edward Mead Johnson to start yet another company — which today is Mead Johnson Nutritionals.

Robert Wood Johnson (left) and James Wood Johnson (right)

Our first top leadership transition for Johnson & Johnson happened unexpectedly in 1910 with the sudden passing of our first president, Robert Wood Johnson, after a brief illness.  Because the Company was so well-managed, his brother James Wood Johnson assumed the role of president with very little fanfare.  He continued Johnson & Johnson on the same steady course set by his brother, growing the company (opening our first international operating companies, in Canada and the U.K.) and adding new products such as BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages.

General Robert Wood Johnson

When James Wood Johnson retired in 1932, his nephew Robert Wood Johnson II (later known as General Robert Wood Johnson) took over as president of the Company.  Under his leadership, Johnson & Johnson continued to grow and further decentralize.  General Robert Wood Johnson wrote Our Credo as the guiding philosophy of the Company, took Johnson & Johnson public in 1944 and — working with the strong management Johnson & Johnson had become known for — added pharmaceutical medicines to the business.  When General Robert Wood Johnson retired in 1963, many people wondered how anyone could fill his shoes, but the Company’s tradition of smooth transitions continued with Philip B. Hoffman taking over the reins of the business as the next Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson.

Philip B. Hoffman

Mr. Hoffman was our first leader who was not a member of the Company’s founding family but, true to Johnson & Johnson tradition, the transition from General Robert Wood Johnson to Phil Hoffman was unremarkable for its smoothness.  Mr. Hoffman led Johnson & Johnson until he retired in 1973, and Richard B. Sellars became our next Chairman and CEO.

Richard B. Sellars

Richard Sellars served for three years before he retired as Chairman and CEO and James E. Burke became our next leader.

James E. Burke

Despite having two leadership transitions in the space of three years, the management transitions in the 1970s were uneventful and Johnson & Johnson continued on its steady path of growth.

Ralph S. Larsen

When James Burke retired in 1989, Ralph S. Larsen became our fifth Chairman and CEO.  Our tradition of smooth leadership transitions held true, but this time the setting provided a tiny bit of dramatic effect:  that year’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders was held in the beautifully restored Art Deco State Theatre in downtown New Brunswick, one of the centerpieces of the city’s revitalization.

The State Theatre: concerts, plays, Broadway musicals…and a Johnson & Johnson management transition!

(Photo of the State Theatre courtesy of the State Theatre via Wikimedia Commons at this link.)

Bill Weldon

Johnson & Johnson’s tradition of smooth leadership transitions continued unabated when Ralph Larsen retired in 2002, and Bill Weldon became our sixth Chairman and CEO.  Now, with the transition from Mr. Weldon to Alex Gorsky as our company’s seventh CEO, our more than a century-old tradition of smooth management transitions adds yet another chapter – something that would no doubt have given great satisfaction to Johnson & Johnson founder Robert Wood Johnson, whose planning and foresight set us on the course that we still continue today.

Fred Kilmer: public health volunteer

Fred Kilmer moved to New Brunswick in 1879 to pursue his career as a pharmacist.  When he arrived in New Brunswick, it was bustling with activity and commerce, but it was like many towns of that era with unpaved roads and decidedly un-modern sanitation.  Here’s how Kilmer described it:

“Only a small section of the town was sewered.  For the most part drainage ran into the street gutters, which emptied into creeks that passed through the town.  Every house had a privy vault. Many had cesspools in their back yards.  There were pig pens, cow and horse stables in the midst of the residential areas.”  [“Sanitation,” by Fred Kilmer, undated three-page description of his work in public health for the City of New Brunswick, from our archives.]

Those were more or less typical conditions for a town of that size in 1879.  But as a new citizen of New Brunswick, a business owner, and a scientist and believer in sanitation and public health, Kilmer was determined to change things.

Fred Kilmer's Opera House Pharmacy, late 1800s, from our archives

“In the early 80’s [note to blog readers: Kilmer is referring to the 1880s], without knowing what we were driving at, with the mayor and a few physicians we organized a board of health and started in.”   [“Sanitation,” by Fred Kilmer, undated three-page description of his work in public health for the City of New Brunswick, from our archives.]  At that time, Kilmer was the owner of the Opera House pharmacy.  When he joined Johnson & Johnson in 1889, he brought his enthusiasm for improving public health and his knowledge with him to Johnson & Johnson.  Soon, Johnson & Johnson was making a variety of public health products and publishing public health material – a natural extension from helping improve surgery to helping to improve public health.    

Mosquitoons, one of the Company's early public health products to help eliminate disease-carrying insects -- specifically mosquitoes.

Among the early Johnson & Johnson public health products were vaccination shields, fumigators, disinfectants and antibacterial soaps.  The Company also published contagious disease bulletins and other free information to help people protect themselves and their families from contagious diseases.

A Johnson & Johnson Contagious Disease Bulletin for Typhoid Fever, from 1901

New Brunswick in the 1880s was a microcosm of typical public health conditions in U.S. cities.  In the days before antibiotics and most vaccines, preventing contagious diseases was a key component of public health.  Kilmer and the other public health volunteers poured carbolic acid (Sir Joseph Lister’s antiseptic of choice) and chloride of lime into the city’s gutters and sewers to disinfect them and help prevent the spread of disease.  In the 1880s, patients with contagious diseases such as typhoid, diphtheria and smallpox were quarantined to protect members of their families and the public.  Kilmer remembered one local resident who expressed a certain, er…sharp reluctance when it came to that early public health measure.

“In one smallpox case we were obliged to obtain a warrant from the court in order to attempt to remove the patient.  On going to the house we were met by a man inside the door with a raised ax.  I still retain this ax as a souvenir.”   [“Sanitation,” by Fred Kilmer, undated three-page description of his work in public health for the City of New Brunswick, from our archives.]

Clearly, a dedication to improving public health in the 1800s could sometimes require nerves of steel.

“We succeeded in inducing factories to vaccinate their employees, and sent physicians from house to house to vaccinate the inmates.  We were about the earliest in the field in milk inspection work…we went from dairy to dairy, farm to farm, and out of this came the system of report and control.”  [“Sanitation,” by Fred Kilmer, undated three-page description of his work in public health for the City of New Brunswick, from our archives.]

Kilmer also worked to get a water filtration system in New Brunswick to make the water cleaner and safer for its residents.

“We instituted a ‘clean-up week,’ which was very helpful in the clearing up of yards, sheds, cellars and atticks.  We early began the issuing of pamphlets covering health likes, such as health ordinances; suggestions and regulations for physicians; a description of the milk supply, with a list of dairies and dealers; suggestions to the users of milk; pamphlets on the care and saving of babies, in connection with a baby campaign.”   [“Sanitation,” by Fred Kilmer, undated three-page description of his work in public health for the City of New Brunswick, from our archives.]

Pamphlet, "How to Save the Babies," from our archives

One of those efforts was a day nursery for New Brunswick’s children during the summer months.  The day nursery was organized by women volunteers from the New Brunswick community and staffed by the Visiting Nurse Association, with support from the city’s Board of Health.

Exhibit of Johnson & Johnson public health information in 1917, from our archives

Along with the clean up weeks, Fred Kilmer and his fellow volunteers on the New Brunswick Board of Health held a series of health exhibits for the citizens of New Brunswick.  The exhibits covered the safe handling of milk, hygiene and sanitation, methods to prevent the spread contagious diseases, combating insects, the proper disposal of garbage and more.   The exhibits were held in storefronts downtown and attracted crowds of citizens, including teachers and classes from the city’s schools.

Johnson & Johnson Clean Up Week Magazine Ad, Nineteen Teens

In the Nineteen Teens, Johnson & Johnson worked with retail pharmacists to take Kilmer’s “Clean Up Week” idea national, with campaigns every spring and public health information such as A Book With a Mission and The Household Hand Book.  These books, made available for free, gave people reliable science-based information on how to recognize contagious disease symptoms, when to call the doctor, and how to use the public health products from Johnson & Johnson to scrub their homes and keep infectious disease germs at bay to protect their families.

 “Our work was largely educational, but out of these crude and faulty methods came the great advance in hygiene and sanitation, including the improvement of the water supply, increased sewage disposal, tuberculosis campaign, care of babies, visiting nurse, and a whole host of measures calculated to improving the health of our citizens.”       [“Sanitation,” by Fred Kilmer, undated three-page description of his work in public health for the City of New Brunswick, from our archives.]

Silver cup presented to Fred Kilmer in 1913 by the New Brunswick Board of Health, in recognition of his contributions to public health.

Fred Kilmer retired from the New Brunswick Board of Health in 1913, having served since the 1880s.  During his remarks to the Board upon his retirement, Kilmer – always ahead of his time — advocated appointing women to serve as part of the organization.  He continued to advocate for public health improvements both as a citizen of New Brunswick and as an employee of Johnson & Johnson, and he was an important early witness to – and participant in — the growth of public health in the United States.

Public Domain photo of Thomas Edison Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin -- via way of Wikimedia commons.

1.     Thomas Alva Edison and Johnson & Johnson: Inventor Thomas Alva Edison is credited with many inventions that shaped the modern world, including the commercial electric light, the phonograph, the stock ticker and motion pictures.  So what’s his connection to Johnson &Johnson?  Edison was a friend of Fred Kilmer, our director of scientific affairs from 1889-1934.  (The public domain photo of Thomas Edison is at this Wikimedia commons link).

Charles Heber Clark – connecting Johnson & Johnson to Mark Twain

2.    Mark Twain and Johnson & Johnson:  Mark Twain was a literary rival of Max Adeler, the pen name of one of our early board of directors members, Charles Heber Clark.  It’s been said that Twain drew his inspiration for “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” from one of Clark’s short stories.  Mark Twain was also very interested in science and was a friend of Nikola Tesla.  Tesla once worked for Thomas Alva Edison…who was a friend of Fred Kilmer.

Robert Wood Johnson -- connecting H. G. Wells to Johnson & Johnson

3.    H. G. Wells and Johnson & Johnson:  It’s thought that H. G. Wells got the idea for his famous books about invisible men and time machines from early science fiction author Edward Page Mitchell, whose stories about an invisible man and a time machine predated those of Wells.  Mitchell was a friend of Company founder Robert Wood Johnson.

Queen Victoria: connected to the royal families of Europe, and also connected to Johnson & Johnson! Public domain image of Queen Victoria courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

4.    Queen Victoria of England and Johnson & Johnson: Queen Victoria, one of the longest-reigning British monarchs in history, underwent successful surgery performed by Sir Joseph Lister, and in 1883 she knighted him in recognition of his lifelong work.  Lister’s talk at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 inspired Robert Wood Johnson, who was in the audience, to found Johnson & Johnson with two of his brothers.  (Public domain image of Queen Victoria from Wikimedia Commons is at this link.)

5.    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Johnson & Johnson: Kilmer House readers will remember that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a student of Dr. Joseph Bell in medical school.  Bell, who was the real-life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, was an early champion of sterile surgery and a colleague of Sir Joseph Lister…whose 1876 lecture Company founder Robert Wood Johnson attended.

Neil Patrick Harris during the taping of the LISTERINE® Antiseptic web documentary, from this blogger’s personal collection.

6.    Neil Patrick Harris and Johnson & Johnson: Actor and all-around cool guy Neil Patrick Harris was part of a web documentary on LISTERINE® Antiseptic done by our consumer operating company.

7.    Rabindranath Tagore and Johnson & Johnson. Tagore, one of the leading lights of Asian literature, earned the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, becoming the first non-European Nobel laureate and the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for literature.  His connection to Johnson & Johnson was through the poet Joyce Kilmer, Fred Kilmer’s son, who interviewed Tagore for a lecture series on Tagore’s second trip to the U.S. during the Nineteen Teens.

Annie Kilmer (pictured with a photo of her son Joyce). She connects Paul Robeson to Johnson & Johnson. Photo from our archives.

8.    Paul Robeson and Johnson & Johnson:  Multi-talented actor, singer, athlete, scholar and Civil Rights activist Paul Robeson also has a connection to Johnson & Johnson, and it comes from his early years as a student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  During the Nineteen Teens, it was customary to host a tea for Rutgers students who excelled in academics, dramatics or athletics.  (Robeson excelled in all three, but had not been scheduled for a tea.)  Annie Kilmer, wife of Johnson & Johnson director of scientific affairs Fred Kilmer, hosted the tea for Paul Robeson.  Many years later, Robeson repaid Annie Kilmer’s work on his behalf by recording a version of “Trees,” Joyce Kilmer’s most famous poem.  If you want to hear Robeson’s magnificent Victrola recording of “Trees,” you can do that right here.

9.    Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Johnson & Johnson: General Robert Wood Johnson was appointed by Roosevelt to head the Smaller War Plants Corporation in Washington, D.C. during World War II, and he received a personal letter from Roosevelt upon returning to Johnson & Johnson.

Letter from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Robert Wood Johnson, 1943, from our archives.

10.    Film director Mel Brooks and Johnson & Johnson.  No, he never directed any of our commercials, but he did make the classic film Young Frankenstein, which Teri Garr was in….and Teri Garr was also part of a classic BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage commercial.

LISTERINE® Antiseptic: the product that connects us to Kevin Bacon!

11.    Kevin Bacon and Johnson & Johnson.  Because no Six Degrees of Separation game would be complete without the ultimate connection, here’s how Johnson & Johnson is connected to actor Kevin Bacon: Our consumer operating company produced a web documentary about LISTERINE® Antiseptic that featured Neil Patrick Harris…who hosted the 2009 Emmy Awards, which had (wait for it)…Kevin Bacon as a presenter!

If anyone has any more Johnson & Johnson connections, we’d love to hear about them!  Please feel free to leave any additional examples of Six Degrees of Separation Johnson & Johnson Style in the comments section of this post.

To tell that story, I’m happy to introduce my first-ever guest poster on Kilmer House, Don Logan.  Don is an IT Analyst in our Ethicon business in Livingston, Scotland and, being a Johnson & Johnson history enthusiast, he has written a history of our historic suture business in Scotland, a business whose earliest roots are connected with Sir Joseph Lister.  Here’s Don’s guest post:

Hi, I have always, since being a young teenager been interested in great leaders, innovators and companies that give you the “WOW” factor, like Carnegie, Ford, Apple to name but a few, and I came across the Kilmer House Blog by chance. This led me to read Lawrence G. Foster’s “The Gentleman Rebel” which really led me into what Johnson & Johnson was all about.  I knew then I had to research how the Ethicon business in Scotland came to be, and below is the beginning:

It all started prior to 1915 during the First World War with a man called George F. Merson, who had previously been employed by J.F.Macfarlan & Co, Edinburgh in their suture business. Trained as a pharmacist, Merson was highly respected in the profession and was appointed an examiner for the final examinations of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (now The Royal Pharmaceutical Society) in 1906. While working for MacFarlan he was involved in the manufacturing of sutures, but they had always used catgut and silk imported from Germany. Merson had seen correspondence between Lord Lister and J.F. Macfarlan & Co dated January 1894, in which Lister asked various details about the sterilising of catgut, and it would appear that by the end of the year 1894, Sir Joseph Lister was a regular customer of catgut from them.

The important part here is That J.F. McFarlan & Co. did not manufacture the catgut themselves – they imported it.

Sources overseas had dried up with the start of the war and Britain was in a critical position with the regard to catgut supplies. George Merson and his wife conducted experiments in their kitchen in Meuse Lane in Edinburgh to try to see whether they could manufacture catgut sutures in the UK.  These experiments were carried out in a private house in Edinburgh, where it was customary for the kitchen pulley to be a very strong structure for drying clothes.  Their kitchen pulley was used for stretching their experimental catgut in a process that was later tested by Merson’s surgeon friends.

Mr. Merson moved his premises to St. John’s Hill in 1920 as need for sutures was increasing. By 1937, when Merson sold his business, Mersons (Sutures) Limited was a well-respected firm that manufactured sutures in the U.K. rather than importing them.

A tube of Merson's sutures, from the archives in Scotland

The history now changes to the early days of Johnson & Johnson, U.S.A. in their search for better suture materials, and particular better catgut. This search had started in the year 1889 or even earlier. In the year 1923 there appeared in the American Journal of Pharmacy an account by three senior employees of Johnson & Johnson U.S.A ( Dr Fred B. Kilmer, Ph,M, G.S. Mathey, Ph, G., Ch,G,B.C., and a H.J. Dobbs) titled ‘Ligatures and Sutures’. They published a most interesting historical account of suture materials, including catgut, silk, silkworm gut, linen, horsehair and wire. H.J.Dobbs in due time would become Chairman and Managing Director of the first Johnson & Johnson UK in Slough. In this capacity he began to manufacture sterile catgut products in the U.K. in the 1920’s. By the outbreak of the Second World War they had a small production of Cumol sterilisation of sutures which were packaged in glass tubes. The problem facing the UK at this time was that the majority of its suture materials had been coming from the United States or from Germany prior to 1938 and, of course, also from the factory of G.F. Merson Ltd. in Edinburgh. The name of George Merson lives on in Ethicon trademarks such as Mersiline® and Mersilk®.

The suture manufacturing of Johnson & Johnson Ltd in Slough, Bucks, was very small, and the management of Johnson & Johnson assessed the U.K. suture business and decide how best to develop it. They saw great opportunities in the suture industry in the UK and then looked up north to Scotland at the business of G.F.Merson Ltd.  It was suggested that they should attempt to acquire the business of G.F.Merson Limited, Edinburgh, and someone from Johnson & Johnson travelled north to have talks with G. F. Merson Limited and the two began their conversation together which eventually led to the acquisition by Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, of the company in Scotland and the establishment in 1947 in Edinburgh of Mersons (Sutures) Limited.

Sutures prepared by Sir Joseph Lister in 1896, from the Ethicon archives

2012 marks the 100 year anniversary of the death of Lord Joseph Lister, ‘the father of modern surgery’ and the most famous customer of G.F. Merson Ltd.  Johnson & Johnson’s history is closely linked with Lord Lister, starting in Philadelphia in 1876, when Robert Johnson, attended a medical conference where he heard Joseph Lister speak on his theories of antiseptics. Over ten years after Johnson had first heard Lister’s theories, Johnson & Johnson manufactured the first commercial sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures, greatly increasing the survival rates of patients in hospitals. The possibilities of antiseptic surgery were the beginnings of Johnson & Johnson.

This year, Johnson & Johnson Medical Limited in the U.K. are delighted to be key sponsors of the Lister Centenary Celebrations of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (one of the oldest medical institutions in the world and where Lord Lister was a former member) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. These are a series of events to commemorate the life and contribution of Lister and to demonstrate how his theories are as relevant to modern healthcare as they were in Lister’s day. Given Lister’s close involvement with Johnson & Johnson’s history, it is fitting that the centenary celebrations of his life and works this year are so closely linked with Johnson & Johnson’s 125th anniversary last year.

Public domain illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Victorian illustrator Sidney Paget.

Sherlock Holmes illustration courtesy of Wikimedia Commons at this link.

By now you will have completed your quick web search on “Sherlock Holmes Johnson & Johnson” without finding anything. So you are now thinking, based on the observable fact that you’re reading a history blog, that it would be perfectly reasonable to conclude that the connection lies somewhere in Johnson & Johnson history.  But where?  To find it, you would have to go back to the inspiration for the founding of Johnson & Johnson: Sir Joseph Lister.

What many people may not know is that Sherlock Holmes, with his extraordinary eye for detail and ability to pull well-reasoned deductions seemingly out of thin air, was based in good part on a real person, a colleague of Lister’s named Dr. Joseph Bell.

Bell was a surgeon and a professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and, in the 1870s, he had a young medical student named Arthur Conan Doyle.  (The Sherlock Holmes online site says that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was only 17 years old when he met Dr. Bell!)

Photo of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Herbert Rose Barraud 1893. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons at this link.

According to Conan Doyle, Bell had a reputation in Edinburgh for being able to observe patients for a few moments, and then tell those patients what they did for a living, where they were from, where they had been and what they had done  recently. To his students, it seemed like wizardry.  This article gives a vivid eyewitness description of Dr. Bell and his methods.

So how did Bell do it?  He used observation, attention to detail and a vast store of knowledge – what today we would refer to as observation based on scientific method.  Bell cultivated those abilities because he believed that heightened powers of observation were essential for diagnosing illnesses.  In the late 1800s, before modern diagnostic tools and technology, diagnosis was largely dependent on the observational powers and knowledge of the physician.  Conan Doyle gave those traits to Sherlock Holmes, even going so far as to model Holmes’ physical description on Dr. Bell.  Like the fictional Holmes, Bell was tall and thin, with an angular face and an energetic manner. Bell, for whom the young Conan Doyle also worked as an assistant, was not just a colleague of Sir Joseph Lister, he was also an early adopter of Lister’s sterile surgery.

Sir Joseph Lister: the connection between sterile surgery, Sherlock Holmes and Johnson & Johnson. Photo from our archives.

Bell and Lister worked together at The Royal Edinburgh Infirmary.  Bell had come from a family of surgeons and, while he was still training as a surgeon, he worked as an assistant to Dr. James Syme, who would become Lister’s father-in-law. At that time, Lister was a house surgeon working with Dr. Syme in Edinburgh, and he was engaged in his research that would lead to the use of carbolic acid as a sterilizing agent to do the first antiseptic surgery.

Historic surgery image, from our archives.

Bell remained at the Royal Edinburgh Infirmary as a surgeon, and was one of the first surgeons to embrace Lister’s antiseptic surgery.  Bell was a strong proponent of hospital cleanliness, and even went one step further than Lister:

“Although Lister wore the same fashionable swallow tail coat from one operation to the next; Bell rolled up the sleeves of his immaculate white shirt and scrubbed his hands. His career spanned the era of “antiseptic surgery” from 1866 until the introduction of steam sterilization in the 1890s.”  [Was the real Sherlock Holmes a pediatric surgeon? By John Raffensperger, Journal of Pediatric Surgery (2010) 45, 1567–1570, at http://www.ciperj.org/imagens/sherlockholmescipe.pdf]

By the way, industrial steam sterilization — to sterilize our mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sutures — was developed by Johnson & Johnson.

Interestingly enough, in a case of life imitating art, Dr. Bell did try his hand at forensic medicine and assisted in some criminal investigations – as a result of the fame that came his way because he was a model for Sherlock Holmes.  Because of that, he is considered a pioneer of forensic science.

The first Johnson & Johnson price list, 1887. Published the same year as the first Sherlock Holmes story.

The first Sherlock Holmes story was published in 1887, just a year after the founding of Johnson & Johnson, and the same year that we published our first comprehensive price list.  What the new fictional detective and the new company had in common (besides the connection to Sir Joseph Lister) was a basis in science, in observation, and in applying science to solving problems. Just as Sherlock Holmes translated the Victorian progress in science into forensic methods to solve cases in Conan Doyle’s stories, so did Johnson & Johnson translate that same progress in science into products to help advance sterile surgery and health care.

So the next time you’re reading a Sherlock Holmes story or watching Holmes on film or on television, you’ll know that he has a…well, elementary connection to the founding and early years of Johnson & Johnson.

Next post:  Letters from Sir Joseph Lister and a history of the Ethicon business in Scotland from the first-ever guest blogger on Kilmer House!

Sir Joseph Lister, from our archives

This February marks the 100th anniversary of the passing of Sir Joseph Lister.  The father of modern antiseptic surgery, he was also the inspiration behind the founding of Johnson & Johnson.  It was Lister’s lecture at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition that led medicinal plaster maker Robert Wood Johnson and his brothers to start a company to make the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures and actively promote the adoption of sterile surgery.  Today, non-sterile surgery would be unthinkable, but it wasn’t all that long ago — just 161 years in the past — that Sir Joseph Lister began to change surgery.

Cover of the Royal College of Surgeons Lister Centenary Conference of 1967 (in honor of the centennial of his birth), from our archives.

Sir Joseph Lister was born in Essex, England in 1827 and, interestingly enough, was the son of the pioneer of the compound microscope, Joseph Jackson Lister.  When he was 26, Lister entered the Royal College of Surgeons (who are honoring Lister this year on the centennial of his passing).  In 1854, Lister moved to the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in Scotland. In 1867, where he became an assistant to the surgeon James Syme.  Lister married Syme’s daughter and they spent their honeymoon traveling to visit the leading hospitals and medical universities in France and Germany.

Sir Joseph Lister and his wife, retouched photograph from our archives

Before Lister, most people believed that infection was caused by exposure to “bad air” or miasma and as a result, surgeons did not wash their hands.  The unsanitary conditions of non-sterile surgery led to astronomically high surgical infection and mortality rates, and most people at the time viewed surgery as a dreaded last resort.  Lister became aware of Louis Pasteur’s work showing that microorganisms caused fermentation, and he applied it for the first time to surgery, showing that microorganisms (“germs,” or “invisible assassins,” as Lister called them) were causing surgical infections.  Lister used carbolic acid as a sterilizing agent – as the story goes, he got the idea from observing the use of carbolic acid to treat sewage in Victorian England.

Photograph of Lister's carbolic acid sprayer, from our archives

Lister soaked his dressings in carbolic acid, washed his hands in it, and devised a sprayer to spray it throughout the operating room….and the survival rates of his surgery patients climbed noticeably.

Illustration of Lister's antiseptic surgery, from our archives. Alert bloggers will notice the carbolic acid sprayer on the stool near the patient. Surgeons were still operating in their street clothing, though...

Perhaps Lister’s most famous case was his successful 1865 treatment of an 11-year old boy who had been run over by a horse cart.  At the time, those kinds of injuries had a very low survival rate due to infection.  But Lister used his antiseptic methods, and the boy’s wounds healed without infection.  He published the case in The Lancet, his 1867 lecture on antiseptic surgery for the British Medical Association in Dublin was published in the British Medical Journal, and people started to take notice.  Lister was made a baronet in 1883 in recognition of his many contributions.  Besides sterile surgery, he was only the second man in England to operate on a brain tumor, and he improved a wide variety of surgical techniques and treatments.  Today, Lister is recognized as the father of modern antiseptic surgery.

Sir Joseph Lister, from our archives

In 1876, Lister was invited to speak at the medical congress attached to the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.  It was attended by medicated plaster maker Robert Wood Johnson, who was representing his company, Seabury & Johnson.  Many prominent American surgeons were in the audience that day, eager to pick apart Lister’s antiseptic surgery methods, since there still was a great deal of skepticism that invisible things that people couldn’t see were causing infection.

Sir Joseph Lister spoke for several hours about the link between germs and infection, demonstrating his carbolic acid sprayer and antiseptic surgical methods and presenting data about patient survival.  Robert Wood Johnson listened and was inspired to make mass produced sterile dressings, gauze and sutures so that surgeons could easily adopt Lister’s methods and save lives.

Excerpt from 1883 meeting minutes of Seabury & Johnson, from our archives

Robert Wood Johnson was put in charge of a small sterile surgical dressing line at Seabury & Johnson, but his partner was not tremendously receptive to the new products.  The June 19, 1883 minutes of a Seabury & Johnson meeting stated “Mr. Johnson then made the following motion.  That the subject of Listerism be got in order at once…Mr. Seabury then moved that the whole be place in Mr. Johnson’s hands…”  [Minutes of Seabury & Johnson meeting, 6/19/1883, from our archives.] Two and a half years later, Robert Wood Johnson and his brothers left and started Johnson & Johnson.   The first mass produced sterile surgical dressings, sterile sutures and the handbook Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment from Johnson & Johnson, based on Lister’s antiseptic methods, made it possible for Lister’s belief and practice that surgery should be sterile to spread and eventually be adopted as the standard.

In 1891, Lister wrote to Johnson & Johnson inquiring about the Company’s methods of antiseptic manufacture, and Johnson & Johnson prepared a reply, which we published in booklet form.

Cover of the March, 1912 RED CROSS® Messenger commemorating Sir Joseph Lister, from our archives

Sir Joseph Lister passed away 100 years ago, on February 10, 1912.  He brought in the modern era of antiseptic surgery and inspired countless members of the medical profession, the founders of Johnson & Johnson, and he inspired a doctor and a pharmacist to invent a surgical disinfectant  in 1879 named in his honor:  LISTERINE® Antiseptic.  (This post details how LISTERINE® evolved into an oral care product, in case you’re wondering how that happened.)

By the accounts of people who knew him, Lister was patient, humble, kind “…a most admirable teacher” with an inquisitive mind, always learning from others and acknowledging his indebtedness to the people who had been his teachers, and those who joined him in advancing science and medicine.

“This sense of indebtedness to others, constituting as it does a splendid example for all of us, was no doubt only part and parcel of that great and natural modesty of the man which powerfully influenced all his views of his own work and life and which constituted one of the great charms of his character.”  ["A Memory and an Appreciation," by Sir Hector C. Cameron, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery, University of Glasgow, from Symposium of Papers on the Late Lord Lister, Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery, May, 1912, p.6.  From our archives.]

On behalf of countless surgery patients, and everyone at Johnson & Johnson, we salute and honor Sir Joseph Lister, the father of modern antiseptic surgery…and the inspiration behind the founding of Johnson & Johnson 126 years ago.

Next post:  From Sir Joseph Lister to Sherlock Holmes.  What was the connection between the world’s most famous fictional detective, Lister and Johnson & Johnson?

An issue of The RED CROSS® Messenger

The RED CROSS® Messenger was an example of the close partnership between Johnson & Johnson and retail pharmacists 100 years ago.  The Company saw pharmacists as partners in helping the public, as evidenced by programs such as the national Clean Up Weeks to help prevent infectious diseases, and the promotion of retail pharmacists as knowledgeable through campaigns such as “Your Druggist Is More Than a Merchant.”  So why the emphasis on window decoration?  Because a well-decorated window could increase the pharmacist’s business and bring more people into the pharmacy — an important venue for scientific advice and for improving health.

A venue for improving your health: a local pharmacy in New Brunswick, N.J. in 1912

In May of 1908, Johnson & Johnson began publishing the RED CROSS® Messenger, a trade publication for the retail pharmacists who sold our products.  (Back then, before supermarkets and modern distributors, retail drug stores sold everything from consumer products to professional medical products.)  The Messenger was written and edited by our director of scientific affairs Fred Kilmer, himself a former retail pharmacist.  Just as the Company saw its relationship with the medical profession as a partnership to advance sterile surgery, science and health care, so too did it see its relationship with pharmacists as a partnership to advance health care and public health.  Much of that was due to Kilmer.

The Messenger offered tips on how to decorate seasonal windows, how to decorate them around specific themes, such as First Aid or spring cleaning, and how to make them attractive and interesting in order to draw people into the pharmacy.  It also published photographs of pharmacy windows sent in by pharmacists from all over the U.S. and throughout the world.  Pharmacists took the ideas in the Messengers and used them to construct a wide variety of creative windows, and then photographed them and sent the pictures to Kilmer, who printed them in the RED CROSS® Messenger along with a description of the kind of materials and technique used to decorate the window.  The captions frequently contained decorating advice.  Pharmacists loved seeing all of the window ideas, and drew inspiration from each other…a lot like the readers of today’s home decorating and DIY blogs.

Over time, some of the windows grew more and more elaborate, with live demonstrations. (One pharmacist used actual Boy Scouts in his window to demonstrate First Aid!)

Johnson & Johnson also made a wide variety of free advertising materials available.  They were printed in the Company’s printing department.  All an interested pharmacist had to do was write to the Advertising Department, and he would be sent an incredible variety of color ads, stand-ups, scale pan covers (they covered the round pans on the scales pharmacists used to weigh raw materials), pamphlets, electros and more.  What on earth was an electro?  In the days long before digital advertising materials, electros were already-created artwork that the pharmacist could use to advertise his pharmacy.

Electros! Not the name of a comic book supervillain, but free advertising materials the Company provided to retail pharmacists.

The Messengers also regularly contained articles about Johnson & Johnson’s philosophy, profiles of the various departments in the Company, and information on how the products worked, so that the pharmacists would be more informed health advisors to their own local customers.

An actual Clerk’s Club pin, from our archives.

The Messengers also started and promoted a Clerk’s Club for pharmacy clerks.  The club’s motto was “Keep to the Front,” and it was a reminder to clerks not to stay in the back of the pharmacy, but to go toward the front where they could be visible and helpful.  The Clerks Club educated pharmacy clerks on the business of retail pharmacy, how to provide service to customers, how to achieve success in their own careers and…naturally…how to decorate a pharmacy window.

In 1910, Johnson & Johnson published a booklet titled Advertising Helps which, as the story at Johnson & Johnson goes, was written by none other than the poet Joyce Kilmer, Fred Kilmer’s son.  Joyce Kilmer did some freelance writing for Johnson & Johnson, and he mentioned writing a “book about window displays” for the Company.  [Joyce Kilmer, A Literary Biography, John Covell, Write-Fit Communications, 2000, p. 10]  Advertising Helps covered every aspect of advertising and promotion in a retail pharmacy, from choosing the content of a window display to how to promote even hard to advertise products, to how the Company’s free health information could help bring customers into the pharmacy.  Here’s a sample, with Joyce Kilmer’s sense of humor in evidence:

“It is a good plan to notice the fashions in colors, and to be guided by them occasionally.  During the anniversary of the invention of mauve, many druggists took advantage of the temporary popularity of that color, and decorated their windows with it.  There was some difficulty, however, in selecting other colors to harmonize with it.  When green was a fashionable shade, it was found exceedingly satisfactory for display purposes. “Alice blue” also, was during its brief vogue, used to advantage by many druggists.”  [Advertising Helps, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, N.J., 1910, p. 2]

How to photograph a store window in 1910, from Advertising Helps. Alert blog readers will appreciate the historical box camera in the illustration.

Despite the humor potential in decorating windows entirely in light purple to celebrate the anniversary of the invention of mauve, Fred Kilmer saw decorating a window as a tremendous responsibility:  it was the way that retail pharmacists got people to go into the pharmacy.  Here’s what Fred Kilmer said in the RED CROSS® Messenger:

“The window trimmer, be he boy, man, clerk or proprietor, holds one of the most responsible positions in the store so far as his contact with the public is concerned.  He can make or break; he can establish and maintain his good reputation.  He can gain new trade; he can keep old customers; he can increase the business.  He can put the store in the front rank, or he can allow it to sag behind.”  [RED CROSS® Messenger, Vol. V, No. 8, January 1913, p. 230]

Kilmer counseled simplicity when decorating a window, and in 1913, he looked back on 25 years of the evolution of retail pharmacy windows, going back to 1886 when he himself was a retail pharmacist.  (Kilmer always tried to make the Opera House Pharmacy windows interesting and educational.)

The Opera House Pharmacy's windows -- decorative and educational.

He wrote: “Twenty-five years ago, as a rule, druggists made but little use of their windows; in fact, many drug store windows were small in size and their use was limited – show bottles, show jars, fly specks, dirt, litter!”  [RED CROSS® Messenger, Vol. V, No. 8, January 1913, p. 230]

Kilmer went on to point out that Johnson & Johnson were early advocates of “modern window shows,” as he called them, and furnished retail pharmacists a huge variety of ads, posters, and displays, all designed to increase the pharmacist’s business and make the retail drug store a more interesting, more educational place.

Here’s some advice from Fred Kilmer:

“Give a clear-cut message in your windows and make it impressive.”

“The advertising value of the window is lost unless the articles on display tell their own story, tell it quickly, and to the point.”

“The window is not a curiosity shop”  (Kilmer was not in favor of haphazardly thrown together combinations of random items – he felt a window should stick to a theme.)

“The windows should be so arranged that people can catch the idea and get at the point clearly.”  [RED CROSS® Messenger, Vol. V, No. 8, January 1913, p. 231]

And here are some examples of retail pharmacy windows decorated with materials supplied by Johnson & Johnson, and according to the principles set out in the RED CROSS® Messengers and Advertising Helps.  Today, perhaps there would even be a reality TV show about who could decorate the best window.  No word on whether any of these windows were mauve.

A decorated window in Washington, D.C.

An eye-catching window from Montreal, Canada

From Oakland, California

From New South Wales, Australia!

The celebrations around the world ranged from employee gatherings to events that included family members, to very personal acknowledgements by individual employees.  Some of our operating companies around the world also celebrated milestone anniversaries of their own in 2011, and they combined the celebration of their individual milestones with the 125th anniversary of Johnson & Johnson.

How much do you know about Johnson & Johnson history? The quiz from our operating companies in Taiwan.

Our operating companies in Taiwan held a contest in which employees submitted stories about the memories and experiences that make them proud to work for Johnson & Johnson.  They also held a quiz to test their knowledge of Johnson & Johnson history.

Employees at our operating companies in Germany celebrate 125 years.

 In Germany, employees across all of the businesses celebrated together with year-long stories about our history, posters and an employee event at which the Mayor of Neuss spoke.  Our consumer company in the U.K. held an employee event at the London Science Museum and in Ireland, all of the operating companies got together with an event for employees and their families.  Our businesses in France also held a combined celebration for employees and their families.

C'est magnifique! Some of the 125th Anniversary decorations at our operating companies in France.

Many operating companies took advantage of the nicer weather during the summer months and held their 125th anniversary events during the summer:  Some of our operating companies that held events in the summer were located in Puerto Rico, Austria, the U.K. and Canada, as well as in Ecuador, and in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the United States.  In Poland, employees volunteered in the community on June 7th to commemorate our 125th, and continued volunteering throughout our anniversary year.

Employees at the consumer operating company in Indonesia celebrate 125 years of Johnson & Johnson

Our consumer operating company in Indonesia held its 125th anniversary event in August, based around helping children in the community.

The cover of the 125th Anniversary book from our businesses in India

Our operating companies in India published a book titled Caring for the World, for 125 Years, which combined a history of Johnson & Johnson with a history of its businesses in India.  (The Company opened its first operating company in India in 1957, in case you’re wondering.)

Operating company employees in Thailand give back to the community in honor of our 125th Anniversary.

Employees in Thailand, wearing special “J&J Spirit 125” t-shirts, packed bags of personal care products to help people affected by recent natural disasters in that region.   In Japan, 125th Anniversary planning also centered around caring for the community, with a focus on helping people affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Family day in China for the 125th Anniversary

In China, the Company’s offices prominently displayed 125th anniversary posters, and employees held a big 125th Anniversary Celebration and Family Day in September.

The front of the postcard

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc. revived the historical Company tradition of producing postcards (something we did regularly 100 years ago) and mailed 125th anniversary postcards with vintage Johnson & Johnson images to their sales organization.  They also held employee events and put together an employee oral history program.

Planting 125 trees in Bucharest, Romania

In Romania, employees in the Janssen organization demonstrated their commitment to the community and the environment by planting 125 trees in Izvor Park in Bucharest.

The time capsule in Spain

Our operating companies in Spain held a cross-sector celebration in October at which they inaugurated a time capsule containing wishes from current employees for employees during our next 125 years.

One of the contest entries in Australia

Employees throughout Australia and New Zealand celebrated 125 years of Johnson & Johnson and 80 years of Johnson & Johnson in Australia/New Zealand in a wide variety of creative ways…including a contest regarding who could put together the best historical exhibit!  Not to be outdone in the Company birthday cake department, they also had a beautiful cake celebrating 125 years of Johnson & Johnson, and 80 years in Australia/NZ.

Celebrating 125 years and 80 years! A Johnson & Johnson birthday cake at Johnson & Johnson Pacific Pty. Ltd. in Australia.

Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick held its employee picnic on August 3rd.  It was kicked off by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange direct from the celebration in New Brunswick….only a short trip across the street from the site of our first building where those 14 employees worked in 1886.

Unleash the cowbells! Employees at Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters in New Brunswick use mini-cowbells to ring the New York Stock Exchange opening bell at their 125th Anniversary celebration.

Not only did it commemorate 125 years of Johnson & Johnson, it was the largest – and loudest! — participation in an opening bell ringing in NYSE history.  It was followed by a day-long picnic that employees joined as their schedules permitted, with food, carnival games, speeches and live music.  Mayor James Cahill of New Brunswick proclaimed the day “Johnson & Johnson day” in New Brunswick, and Canadian country music star George Canyon, who is a spokesperson for one of our operating companies, played a concert for employees and spoke about how products from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies help him manage his diabetes and allow him to pursue his dreams.

And in a very personal celebration, an employee at our operating company DePuyMitek, Inc. committed to running 125k on a treadmill in their fitness center to raise money for his company’s United Way Campaign in honor of Johnson & Johnson’s 125th Anniversary.

One of two cakes at the Johnson & Johnson Sales and Logistics Company, LLC celebration.

Employees at the Johnson & Johnson Sales and Logistics Company, LLC had a cake and ice cream social to celebrate, and put together an inspirational paper quilt about what working for Johnson & Johnson means to them.  And since blog readers got a glimpse of the SLC’s cake, it’s only fair to include one from the celebration at our operating companies in Brazil.

A 125th Anniversary cake from Brazil!

The 125th Anniversary celebration also saw another historical first for Johnson & Johnson and its operating companies:  it marked the largest number of employees in the Company’s history ever to celebrate a milestone anniversary.  It allowed employees at our global decentralized operating companies to come together to celebrate the shared heritage and values of Johnson & Johnson as we look forward to our next 125 years.

Here’s the ennTV story about some of our 125th Anniversary celebrations around the world.  Alert blog readers will notice a few more 125th Anniversary cakes from around the world in the video:

Page from a ledger book belonging to the Gilmour brothers, 1892, from our archives.

Let’s join that Johnson & Johnson employee on a trip around the world in 1908.  Our first stop is  Canada, by way of the U.K.  But for our first stop, we need to go back further, to 1888, two years after Johnson & Johnson was founded.  At that time, the Johnson brothers were already building partnerships with sales agents to sell the Company’s products across the world.  Their oldest partnership was with the Gilmour brothers, who became the Johnson & Johnson sales agents in Montreal, Canada.  The relationship with the Gilmours began around 1888-1889 and, by 1919, it had progressed into such a close partnership that they were hired by the Johnson brothers to manage our first international operating company in Canada.

The Gilmour brothers

In the U.K., Johnson & Johnson opened its first operating company in 1924, but in November of 1908, you could find us at the London Medical Exhibition.  Our booth at that event was staffed by the Company’s U.K. sales agents, John Timpson & Company.

The Company also had sales representatives in Germany. The photo below shows one of the representatives from Hamburg, who found a creative way to travel on the Company’s behalf.

One of the Company's European sales agents in 1908, displaying that can-do spirit.

Next stop:  Japan.   Here’s a retail pharmacy in Kobe, Japan in June of 1909.  Alert blog readers will notice the Company’s large and eye-catching cotton ad, hanging at the back of the pharmacy.

Pharmacy in Kobe, Japan in 1908 with Johnson & Johnson ad

The same ad was also spotted in Mexico City, at the offices of the Company’s sales agents.

Our Mexico City sales agents in 1908

At the Bombay Medical Congress in Mumbai, India in early February and March of 1909, Johnson & Johnson was one of only a very few American companies to have an exhibit.  The congress focused on subjects that included infectious disease, some non-communicable diseases, and public health.  Part of the exhibit was a model operating theater, complete with sterile surgical dressings from Johnson & Johnson.   The local newspaper in Mumbai mentioned “ ‘here was housed the finest exhibit of surgical dressings from the Johnson & Johnson laboratories.  These products…were the subject of much discussion.’ ”  [THE RED CROSS® MESSENGER Vol I, #12, May 1909, p. 160]

Johnson & Johnson exhibit at the Bombay Medical Congress 102 years ago

Here’s a pharmacy in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1908 with…you guessed it…Johnson & Johnson products prominently displayed in the window.

Nova Scotia, Canada pharmacy in 1908

And even in a rural Canadian town called Gowanda that grew up around silver mining, Johnson & Johnson products could be found at the log cabin pharmacy in 1908.

The Company had sales agents traveling through in Egypt as well.  Here’s one of them in October of 1909.

One of the Company's sales agents in Egypt, 1909, with the world-travelling cotton ad.

Potter & Birks, our Australia and New Zealand sales agents, from our archives.

In Australia, where Johnson & Johnson opened an operating company in 1931, the Company’s products had been available since the late 1800s.  In 1908, the sales agents for Australia and New Zealand were Potter & Birks.  To give you an idea of how comprehensively they represented the Company, their 1912 catalog of Johnson & Johnson products available in Australia was an impressive 115 pages in length.

An issue of the RED CHAIN Messenger from 1920

Potter & Birks even published an Australian counterpart of The RED CROSS® Messenger, the Company’s publication for retail pharmacists.  The Australian version was called the RED CHAIN MESSENGER, with Eric Birks as the Australian editor, and Fred Kilmer listed as the American editor.  Like the American edition, the RED CHAIN MESSENGER (named after the distinctive Red Chain logo design on some of the Company’s products outside of the United States, and on the publication’s cover) was designed to help Australasian retain pharmacists build their businesses while educating them about Johnson & Johnson, its products and its philosophy.

Waldron & Dietrich -- our San Francisco sales agents in 1906

In the U.S., the Company’s San Francisco sales agents, Waldron & Dietrich, received special permission to telegraph an appeal to Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick after the April 18, 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.  Their quick action allowed Johnson & Johnson to have railway cars full of products on their way from New Brunswick to San Francisco within hours, marking the official start of our disaster relief program.

Finally, alert Kilmer House readers will by now have picked up on the fact that our sales agents in the U.S. and around the world shared something else with Johnson & Johnson, besides a close relationship, a dedication to making our products available, and a desire to help improve healthcare:  an ampersand in their company names.

Thanks to my colleagues at Johnson & Johnson Australia and New Zealand for the photo of the RED CHAIN Messenger, from the excellent book Johnson & Johnson, 75 Years of Caring, Australia and New Zealand, by Peter Donovan, © Johnson & Johnson, 2006.