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THE MUSEUM OF
MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH
Is this the first Tampax menstrual tampon?
(U.S.A., about 1931-33)
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From the tip of the
cotton plug (left) to the end of
the second tube the 'pon measures
4.75" (12 cm) long. The
two-tube design was Dr. Haas's
great invention - the Sunday
London Times named him one of the
"1000 Makers
of the Twentieth Century,"
in
1969 - enabling women to insert
the tampon without their fingers
touching their "parts," to use the
word in the instructions. Roughly
contemporary tampons had no
applicator, like fax
and Wix.
Tampax Inc. bought the Wix company
in the 1930s but I haven't been
able to find a trace of fax
other than what a wonderful woman
sent me in the 1990s. I once
offered $500 for anyone who could
find fax ads in newspapers
or elsewhere; no one could - if
they had tried at all, since I
heard from not one soul.
Note how this
differs from the EZO tampon,
probably also from the 30s. Note
the similarity with Sta-Pacs
tampon.
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The string
stretches 4.125" (10.5 cm).
The plug (the directions call it a
pack) is 1.75" (4.5 cm) x 0.48"
(1.2 cm) with the irregular tip
being 0.56" (0.75 cm) at its
widest.
Dr. Haas made "Tampax" from the
words "tampon" and "vaginal pack,"
liked the sound of Kotex and
thought it important for the name
to be memorable for marketing
purposes.
The smaller tube is 0.44" (1.2 cm)
in diameter, the larger maybe
0.01" more, too small to measure
with my ruler. Everything is
white, 70+ years seemingly making
no difference - except for a brown
mark on the margin near the
string, which might be an
intentional adhesive, since I had
trouble pushing the plunger to get
the plug out. If so, pity the
woman who would have tried to use
it! But maybe age affected it.
This was the second tampon I
tried; the plug on the first one
would not come out. The same thing
happened with the EZO tampon -
ironically.
All images
copyright 2005 Harry Finley
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© 2005 Harry Finley. It is illegal to
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