History Cyanoacrylate was discovered by Harry Coover at Eastman Kodak during World War II when searching for a way to make synthetic gun-sights (a substitute for spider silk). It did not solve this problem, since it stuck to all the apparatus used to handle it. It was patented in 1956 and developed into Eastman 910 adhesive in 1958. The new glue was demonstrated in 1959 on the television show I've Got a Secret when the host Garry Moore was lifted into the air by two steel plates held together with a drop of Eastman 910. Cyanoacrylates are now a family of adhesives based on similar chemistry.
[edit] Medicine The use of cyanoacrylate glues in medicine was considered fairly early on. Eastman Kodak and Ethicon began studying whether the glues could be used to hold human tissue together after surgery. In 1964, Eastman submitted an application to use cyanoacrylate glues to seal wounds to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Soon afterward Dr. Harry Coover's glue did find use in Vietnam--reportedly in 1966, cyanoacrylates were tested on-site by a specially trained surgical team, with impressive results. In an interview with Dr. Coover by the Kingsport Times-News, Coover said that the compound demonstrated an excellent capacity to stop bleeding, and during the Vietnam War, he developed disposable cyanoacrylate sprays for use in the battlefield.
"If somebody had a chest wound or open wound that was bleeding, the biggest problem they had was stopping the bleeding so they could get the patient back to the hospital. And the consequence was--many of them bled to death. So the medics used the spray, stopped the bleeding, and were able to get the wounded back to the base hospital. And many, many lives were saved," Coover said.