Was Super Glue invented to seal battle wounds in Vietnam?
Dear Straight Dope: I was talking to my brother-in-law the other day and noticed that he had a fairly bad cut on his hand, but it looked kind of weird. I asked what happened and he said that he cut it with a carpet knife accidentally and that instead of using a band-aid or other typical first-aid-type product, he sealed it with super glue.When I sounded surprised at this, he told me that his doctor had told him once that super glue came about during Vietnam as a means of quickly closing wounds on the front lines where troops were under fire and had no time to bandage wounds in a more traditional manner. It sounds plausible–after all it does say that it “bonds skin instantly.” Is this true or just an urban legend? — Scott Matheson As with many urban legends there’s a mix of fact and fiction in what your brother-in-law said. In contrast to most such cases, though, this one’s a lot more fact than fiction. Super glue, Krazy glue, Eastman 910 and similar glues are all a special type of glu
