Rewriting Life

Blood-Stanching Gauze

Oct 20, 2008

A cutting-edge technology designed for the battlefield is now commercially available–and its first application is stopping nosebleeds. The gauze from Z-Medica is infused with tiny particles of a clay called kaolin, whose ability to stop bleeding was discovered by Galen Stucky, a chemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before making its commercial debut, the gauze was used by the U.S. military, whose Tactical Combat Casualty Care program recommends it for hemorrhage treatment.