22nd July ’17: Scrubs green & blood tales

Welcome to the weekend.

As a child, I loved hearing my mum’s 1950s student nurse stories (swipe for a wonderful pic of her), like the time she dropped a pint bottle of blood on the floor (now THAT would have used up a fair wodge of kitchen roll) and how scary matron would test their bed-making skills by attempting to bounce a coin on the tightly tucked-in sheets. It was her nursing days that also put her off white kitchens (‘Sluice rooms and bed pans,’ she’d tell me). Of course, white in a clinical setting seems to make sense, which is why I was fascinated to hear why scrubs and operating sheets are often ‘cyan’ (blue/green). Apparently the idea is that looking at blue/green after focusing so intently on the red insides of a body helps surgeons to focus by refreshing their vision of red (red and blue/green are complementary colours), thereby reducing the risk of surgical errors. Anyway, let me leave you with that story: my colour journey starts today so the road beckons. Catch you later, folks.

Martha, The Colour File x 

Leave a Reply