The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 12/11/13 19:19, Jim Hawkins wrote:
>> Is there anything available these days that's safe to use on
>> skin or fingernails ?
> superglue
> originally developed as a fast suture device
I thought that too but it wasn't(ish).
It is(was?) however used like that [1].
Medical CA is formulated slightly differently to household CA so
Superglue™ etc should not be used for wound closing.
Wikipedia has:-
The original cyanoacrylates (the chemical name for the glue) were
discovered in 1942 in a search for materials to make clear plastic gun
sights during World War II, when a team of scientists headed by Harry
Wesley Coover Jr. stumbled upon a formulation that stuck to everything
that it came in contact with.
Whilst the straight dope says this is a mix of fact and fiction.
[1] I remember myself and mum's boyfriend, both drunk as skunks. John[2]
had sliced his finger, I told him about CA initially being used in
place of stitches. So he told me to go ahead (although a stone mason
and as 'hard as nails' he didn't like going to the doctor's) so there we
were, both reeling, and me getting CA everywhere trapping lots of crap
in his wound. Two days later he had to go to hospital as the finger had
blown up to twice its normal size with infection, hospital had a V hard
time; opening the wound to let the crap out, draining the wound, then
stitching him back up. So a job which should have been ten minutes and
a stitch cost hours and half a dozen stitches because I had heard a
half truth and believed, in my drunken state, that I knew what I was
doing.
[2] Mum's bf ( I was too old to call him uncle John.). Mum and Dad were
divorced when I was 10 was, at the time of this tale, mid twenties.