Bandage, immobilise, pad: the triangular cloth

The triangular cloth is an explicit first aid utensil. It serves as a simple bandage as well as a fixative, for padding and as a carrying aid for fractures. The versatile cloth made of cotton or modern fibre has the shape of an approximately right-angled isosceles triangle with a base length of about one metre. To this day, it is an essential part of every first aid kit.

Personal involvement
As a surgeon, the German physician Friedrich Esmarch personally experienced the suffering on the battlefield.[1] With a great desire to help, he vigorously promoted the hospital system in order to create better conditions for the care of wounded soldiers. In 1869, he wrote a first-aid manual entitled “The First Dressing on the Battlefield”, in which he presented the triangular cloth for the first time. In its further development, it is supplemented from 1873 onwards with illustrations of 34 possible applications by Johann Heinrich Wittmaack. In 1882, Friedrich Esmarch founds the first “German Samaritan Association” in Kiel with the aim of training every citizen to become a competent first-aider. From 1854 to 1898 Esmarch is director of the Surgical Clinic in Kiel and makes it the medical metropolis of the then German Empire.

First Aid Pioneer
Friedrich Esmarch marries Princess Henriette of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, an aunt of the later German Empress Auguste Viktoria, in his second marriage. In recognition of his services, the physician was elevated to hereditary Prussian nobility in 1887 by Emperor Wilhelm I and became the “von Esmarch”. He died in Kiel in 1908 at the age of 85. To this day, the triangular cloth is part of the first aid kit and the first aid kit.

[1] Schleswig-Holstein Uprising (1848/51) and German Unification Wars (1864-71)