Vaseline
- Year(s) Officially Discovered: 1859
- Discovery Put Into Action: Around The 1860s or 1870s
- Team/Person Behind The Discovery: Robert Chesebrough, Pennsylvania Oil Rig Workers
Vaseline has been around for an incredibly long time. In fact, it is likely your great grandparents used it at some time or another in their lives. For years, it stood out as one of the best First Aid items everyone needed in the home. Yet this only happened because of its discovery. The man behind one of the greatest discoveries ever is Robert Chesebrough. At the time, this 22-Year-Old Chemist was investigating an oil well in Pennsylvania. Workers had complained that there was some sort of jelly-like substance called “rod wax” that had been messing with the machine.
It would get inside them, making them malfunction and thus stopping crucial oil work. Chesebrough wanted to see what he could do to remedy the problem. To his surprise, when small cuts, burns, or sores occurred on the job, workers were often putting the Rod Wax on the affected areas. It did not make a lot of sense, so he took some of it home to experiment with it. He found that the substance did indeed actually treat burns and cuts on the skin and could be used medically. This Petroleum Jelly is called Vaseline today, and has treated cuts and burns for over 150 years!