Pyroxylin was discovered by Schönbein in 1847, and the next year an
American medical student at Boston, Massachussets, described in the
American Journal of the Medical Sciences his experiments showing the
use that could be made of this substance in surgery when dissolved in
ether and alcohol. By painting it on a band of leather one inch wide
and attaching this to the hand, he caused the band to adhere so firmly
that it could not be detached by a weight of twenty pounds.