Table 1.

Events that have influenced the development of modern antimicrobial wound care

Intervention	Date of introduction	Location	Use
Wine, vinegar, beer	antiquity	Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece	wound cleansing
Honey	antiquity	Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, China	in ointments applied to various wounds
Metallic silver	circa 420 bce	Persia	storage of potable water
Mercuric chloride	Middle Ages	France and Arabic civilizations	various wounds
Silver nitrate	eighteenth century	Europe	treatment of ulcers
Iodine	1829	France	various wounds
Chlorinated water and chlorinated lime	1820s	UK	hospital cleaning
	1847	Austria	antiseptic handwashing
Sodium hypochlorite	1825	France	various wounds
Creosote (wood)	1837	Ireland	dressing venereal ulcers, fistula and nasal septum
Phenol	1860	Germany	wound antiseptic
Carbolic acid	1865	UK	treatment of compound fractures
Sterile cotton/gauze	1891	USA	wound dressing
Hydrogen peroxide	1887	UK	wound antiseptic
Silver foil	1895	USA	surgical wound dressing (hernia)
Tulle gras (gauze with soft paraffin, balsam of Peru and olive oil)	1915	France	non-adherent wound dressing
EUSOL	1915	UK	wound antiseptic
Dakin’s solution	1915	UK	wound antiseptic
Chlorhexidine digluconate	1954	UK	antiseptic hand scrub and irrigating wounds
Povidone iodine	1956	USA	wound antiseptic
Cadexomer iodine	1980s	Sweden	wound dressing
Silver nitrate	1964	UK	over-granulating wounds
Silver sulfadiazine	1968	USA	infection control in burns
Polihexanide	1991	Switzerland	antiseptic solution
Octenidine dihydrochloride	1988	Germany	antiseptic solution
Medical honey	1999	Australia	topical treatment of wounds
Reactive oxygen species	2006	Belgium and UK	enzyme alginogelsa

Here, the term antiseptic refers to a non-antibiotic antimicrobial (see section 3).

^aNote that alginogels are gels rather than dressings.