Prominent People in the Contact Lens World – Robert Johnson
Further to hearing a speech by one of the leaders in the antiseptic industry at the time, Joseph Lister, Robert Johnson discussed the idea with his James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson, his brothers, of creating a variety of dressings for wounds that were ready to use. Whilst this was a leading invention for its time, none of the trio were able to predict the size the company would become and what they would end up producing.
Born in 1845 as Robert Wood Johnson, Johnson was one of eleven siblings. It was in 1861, when he was 16 that Johnson’s long-living career began. Taking an apprenticeship in apothecary, Johnson honed his skills and began to work on antiseptic dressings only a few years later. Working on his antiseptic dressings and sterile equipment over the following decades, by 1878 Johnson (and his then partner George Seabury) were turning over in excess of $10,000 per month – in excess of a quarter of a million dollars per month, in today’s money).
Johnson stopped working with Seabury and began working with his two brothers, James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson. Creating and developing the same line of products, the company, Johnson and Johnson, was turning over $25,000 a month in 1888. Already, this was a definite sign of things to follow for the company.
Over the years, the company produced a variety of products – from Band-Aid plasters starting in 1890 to the world’s first daily disposable contact lens almost a century late in the 1980’s. Each and every one of Johnson and Johnson’s product has become a household name or been of a major help to companies worldwide – all thanks to Robert Wood Johnson’s idea of creating a simple yet effective antiseptic dressing.