AROUND the beginning of the 20th century the medical profession underwent an image makeover. Doctors swapped their traditional black coats for white ones, similar to those worn by scientists in laboratories. This was meant to bolster a physician’s scientific credibility at a time when many practising healers were quacks, charlatans and frauds. As the importance of antiseptics became more widely understood, white was also thought to have the advantage of showing any soiling.

Nowadays many doctors are likely to wear everyday clothes, or blue or green “scrubs”, which are said to reduce eye strain in brightly-lit operating theatres. White coats are reckoned to be capable of spreading diseases as easily as clothing of any other colour, especially when long sleeves brush against multiple surfaces. Many clinics and hospitals now have a “bare below the elbows” policy for staff, whether in uniform or their own clothes. This is also supposed to encourage more thorough handwashing.

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