Kilmer House

Regular readers of Kilmer House have read about the aseptic, or sterile conditions that Johnson & Johnson maintained over 100 years ago in order to manufacture the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures.  So I thought it would be interesting to post some of the rules for our Aseptic Department from 1897:  112 years ago. You Can’t Do That!  A list of what not to do from 1897 Don’t allow a dressing to touch your person or clothing, unprepared tables, tools or apparatus. Don’t touch any other person. Don’t touch a dressing with hands that are not s

Here’s a quick quiz.  From the description of this Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies product, would the consumer using it be more likely to be listening to music on an MP3 player, or cranking up one of those old fashioned gramophones?  The product is a liquid bandage that’s applied with an applicator.  It forms a transparent, waterproof coating that keeps small wounds covered while they heal, and it won’t wash off with soap and water.  Any guesses?  Here’s the answer:  get that gramophone out of the museum, because the product was Cotolia Liquid Court Plas

With Mother’s Day coming up in the U.S. on May 9th, Kilmer House would like to salute all of the Moms throughout our history and in our present.  This is the first in a series of three Mother’s Day posts that talk about some of our history that is connected to mothers.  One of the ways Johnson & Johnson supported mothers starting in the 1890s was through the manufacture of maternity kits, designed to insure safe childbirth for the mother and baby. Today, there are countless books, websites, online communities and classes for expectant parents to prepare them for the birth of a ch

In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the passing of Johnson & Johnson founder Robert Wood Johnson in 1910, this is one of several posts looking at the earliest years of Johnson & Johnson, Robert Wood Johnson as our first president, and the Company’s first senior management transition. It’s 1887 and Johnson & Johnson has grown in just one year from 14 employees in one building to 125 employees in several buildings.  Our original building from 1886, the four-story former wallpaper factory, is now the plaster mill, filled with machinery designed by founder James Wood Johnso

Alert Kilmer House readers may have noticed that there are a number of photographs of Johnson & Johnson from the early 1890s on the blog, like this one: 1893 photograph of Johnson & Johnson buildings in New Brunswick, N.J. Today, with digital cameras and mobile phones, it’s second nature to take a picture of anything at any time.  But in 1893 it was still a big deal, and we have some evidence that the photo shoot that resulted in these pictures was a big event at Johnson & Johnson. The oldest images we have of Johnson & Johnson from the late 1880s are illustrat

Fred Kilmer In 1889, one of the most remarkable employees in the history of Johnson & Johnson arrived at our growing array of buildings as our new director of scientific affairs.  Just as the arrival of Robert Wood Johnson had created a whirlwind of excitement and activity at Johnson & Johnson, the entrance of the quiet, more introverted Fred Kilmer was about to do the same. Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment: Published in 1888, it helped spread the adoption of antiseptic surgery. Since Kilmer had put together the groundbreaking Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment fo

When Johnson & Johnson founders Robert Wood Johnson, James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson were born in the mid-1800s, one of the most basic developments in science and medicine that we take for granted today -- an understanding of the causes of infection – hadn’t been discovered.  During the Johnson brothers’ early years, that scientific discovery and its practical application to surgery would completely transform medicine.  In 1886 (125 years ago!), those brothers, now grown up, built on that discovery and its application.  How?  They started a business to make the first mass produc

By the time Fred Kilmer wrote back to Sir Joseph Lister in 1891, he was able to describe in great detail the Company’s sterilization and manufacturing procedures – including our Aseptic Room, the steam sterilizers and the water filtration system.  These high-tech facilities and pioneering equipment were all made possible by another partnership during the early days of Johnson & Johnson: the partnership between science and engineering as personified by James Wood Johnson and Fred Kilmer. Mr. Science…meet Mr. Engineering. Fred Kilmer (left) and James Wood Johnson (right) When James Wood John

Surgery before it was sterile, with the surgeons in street clothing, and a complete lack of aseptic procedures. Although it seems hard to believe today, as recently as the late 1800s the concept that surgery should be sterile was still facing an uphill battle.  Some people found it hard to believe that invisible “germs” (as they were called) were causing the high rates of post-surgical infections.  Others (some surgeons included) still believed that infections weren’t caused by germs at all, which inclined them to view sterile surgery as an unnecessary affectation.  Surgeons who did want to tr

While we generally think of benchmarking as a modern concept, it’s something that has been around for a long time. (The name has its origins in the horizontal markings surveyors chiseled into stone buildings centuries ago in Europe.)  For a business, benchmarking is critical, so it comes as no surprise that getting out of the office to see what others are doing is a longstanding tradition at Johnson & Johnson.  In fact, in 1899, Fred Kilmer went to Europe on a working vacation to do just that:  benchmarking. In 1899, the U.K. (home to Sir Joseph Lister) and Germany (home to microbiology p