Syringe - Historical Timeline

Historical Timeline

The oldest known use of the syringe tool is in India. Many paintings and various other forms of illustrations depict the use of syringes during the Hindu holiday of Holi. The syringe was used as a squirting apparatus.

• The first piston syringes were used in Roman times. during the 1st century AD Celsus mentions the use of them to treat medical complications in his De Medicina.
• 9th century AD: The Iraqi/Egyptian surgeon Ammar ibn 'Ali al-Mawsili' created a syringe in the 9th century using a hollow glass tube, and suction to remove cataracts from patients' eyes, a practice that remained in use up until at least the 13th century.
• c. 1650: Blaise Pascal invented a syringe (not necessarily hypodermic) as an application of what is now called Pascal's law.
• 1844: Irish physician Francis Rynd invented the hollow needle and used it to make the first recorded subcutaneous injections, specifically a sedative to treat neuralgia.
• 1853: Charles Pravaz and Alexander Wood developed a medical hypodermic syringe with a needle fine enough to pierce the skin. Shortly thereafter, the first recorded fatality from a hypodermic-syringe induced overdose was Wood's wife from self-administered morphine.
• 1946: Chance Brothers in Smethwick, Birmingham, England produce the first all-glass syringe with interchangeable barrel and plunger, thereby allowing mass-sterilisation of components without the need for matching them.
• 1956: New Zealand pharmacist and inventor Colin Murdoch granted New Zealand and Australian patents for a disposable plastic syringe.