Asepto Syringe
date: label: Date made
content: c. 1920
name: label: maker
content: Becton, Dickinson and Company
notes: label: Description
content: The Asepto was advertised as a plungerless all-glass syringe with a closely fitting rubber bulb of exactly the same capacity as the barrel of the syringe, so that the syringe is filled or emptied with one compression of the bulb. The bulb slips into, not over, the barrel of the syringe, making sterilization easier. And the form prevented "fluid from entering the bulb when the syringe was inverted.” The inscription on this example reads "ASEPTO / BD / SYRINGE."
label: Description
content: The form was devised by Oscar O. R. Schwidetzky (1875-1963), a German-born instrument maker who served an apprenticeship before emigrating to the United States. In time, Schwidetzky became director of research at Becton, Dickinson & Co.
label: Description
content: Ref: Oscar O. R. Schwidetzky, “Syringe,” U.S. Patent 1,349,474 (Aug. 10, 1920), assigned to Becton, Dickinson & Co.
label: Description
content: Arthur H. Thomas, Laboratory Apparatus and Reagents (Philadelphia, 1921), p. 569.
label: Description
content: Becton, Dickinson ad for Asepto Syringes in American Journal of the Medical Sciences 166 (Sept. 1923): 36.
label: Description
content: “Oscar O. R. Schwidetzky Dies; Inventor of Medical Instruments,” New York Times (Oct. 11, 1963), p. 36.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mary E. and Joseph F. Melfi, Jr., Tupper's Drug Store, Summerville, South Carolina
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1980.0698.186
label: accession number
content: 1980.0698
label: catalog number
content: 1980.0698.186
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Syringe
label: Object Name
content: syringe
label: Other Terms
content: Syringe; Non-Hypodermic
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (bottle material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: rubber (bulb material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 cm x 3.5 cm; 5 7/8 in x 1 3/8 in
label: Measurements
content: cylinder: 6 in x 1 1/2 in; 15.24 cm x 3.81 cm
label: Measurements
content: syringe: 5 5/8 in x 1 1/4 in; 14.2875 cm x 3.175 cm