Glove
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A glove (Middle English from Old English glof) is a type of garment which covers the hand. Gloves have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb; if there is an opening but no covering sheath for each finger they are called "fingerless gloves". Fingerless gloves with one large opening rather than individual openings for each fingers are sometimes called gauntlets. Gloves which cover the entire hand but do not have separate finger openings or sheaths are called mittens. Mittens are warmer than gloves made of the same material because the extra air inside creates added insulation, and because fingers maintain their warmth better when they are touching.
There is also a type of fingerless mitten available which allows all the fingers of a hand to reside within a single defined cavity to maximize the benefits of body heat, whilst also allowing the individual fingers to be quickly freed for ease of movement. The usual design is for the mitten cavity to be stitched on one side only to the back of the fingerless glove, allowing it to be flipped over to transform the garment from one type of glove to another.
Gloves can serve to protect and comfort the hands of the wearer against cold or heat, physical damage by friction, abrasion or chemicals, and disease; or in turn to provide a guard for what a bare hand should not touch. Latex, nitrile rubber or vinyl disposable gloves are often worn by healthcare professionals as hygiene and contamination protection measures. Police officers often wear them to work in crime scenes to prevent destroying evidence in the scene. Many criminals also wear these gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, which makes the crime investigation more difficult.
Fingerless gloves are useful for cold environments where dexterity is required that gloves would restrict. Cigarette smokers and church organists often use fingerless gloves. Some gloves include a gauntlet that extends partway up the arm. Cycling gloves for road racing or touring are usually fingerless.
Gloves have been made of many materials including cloth, knitted or felted wool, leather, rubber, latex, neoprene and metal (as in chain mail). Modern gloves made of kevlar protect the wearer from cuts. Gloves and gauntlets are also integral components of pressure suits and spacesuits such as the Apollo/Skylab A7L which went to the moon. Spacesuit gloves must combine extreme toughness and environmental protection with a degree of sensitivity and flexibility if the astronaut is to do any manual work.
Today gloves are made around the world. Most expensive women's fashion gloves are still made in France, with some made in Canada. For cheaper male gloves New York State, especially Gloversville, New York is still a world centre of glove manufacturing. More and more glove manufacturing is being done in East Asia, however.
Standards
There are a number of different European standards that relate to gloves. These include:
BS EN388- Mechanical hazards including Abrasion, cut, tear and puncture. BS EN374-2- Micro-oraganisms BS EN374-3- Chemicals BS EN420- General requirements for gloves includes sizing and a number of health and safety aspects including latex protein and chromium levels. BS EN60903- Electric shock BS EN407- Heat resistance BS EN511- Cold resistance BS EN1149- Antistatic
These exist to fulfill the PPE requirements.
PPE places gloves into three categories:
- Minimal risk - End user can easily identify risk. Risk is low.
- Complex design- Used situations that can cause serious injury or death.
- Intermediate - Gloves that dont fit into minimal risk or complex design catergories.
[edit] History
Gloves appear to be of great antiquity. According to some translations of Homer's The Odyssey, Laërtes is described as wearing gloves while walking in his garden so as to avoid the brambles. (Other translations, however, insist that Laertes pulled his long sleeves over his hands.) Herodotus, in The History of Herodotus (440 BC), tells how Leotychides was incriminated by a glove (gauntlet) full of silver that he received as a bribe. Among the Romans also there are occasional references to the use of gloves. According to Pliny the Younger (ca. 100), his uncle's shorthand writer wore gloves during the winter so as not to impede the elder Pliny's work.
Gloves are also used for fashion, ceremonial and religious purposes. British and European Ladies in the 13th century began to wear gloves as fashion ornament. They were made of linen and silk, and sometimes reached to the elbow. It was not until the 16th century that they reached their greatest elaboration, however, when Queen Elizabeth I set the fashion for wearing them richly embroidered and jeweled.
Embroidered and jeweled gloves also formed part of the insignia of emperors and kings. Thus Matthew of Paris, in recording the burial of Henry II of England in 1189, mentions that he was buried in his coronation robes with a golden crown on his head and gloves on his hands. Gloves were also found on the hands of King John when his tomb was opened in 1797 and on those of King Edward I when his tomb was opened in 1774.
Pontifical gloves are liturgical ornaments used primarily by the pope, the cardinals, and bishops. They may be worn only at the celebration of mass. The liturgical use of gloves has not been traced beyond the beginning of the 10th century, and their introduction may have been due to a simple desire to keep the hands clean for the holy mysteries, but others suggest that they were adopted as part of the increasing pomp with which the Carolingian bishops were surrounding themselves. From the Frankish kingdom the custom spread to Rome, where liturgical gloves are first heard of in the earlier half of the 11th century.
Latex gloves, ubiquitous in surgery and forensics, were developed by the Australian Ansell company.
"If it doesn't fit -- you must acquit;" spoken by Johnny Cochran during the O.J. Simpson murder trial, in reference to a pair of gloves.
[edit] Types of glove
[edit] Commercial and industrial
- Barbed wire handler's gloves
- Chainsaw gloves
- firemen's gauntlets
- Medical gloves
- Welder's gloves
- Sandblasting gloves
- Gardening gloves
[edit] Sport and recreational
- Archer's glove
- Baseball glove or catcher's mitt: in baseball, the players in the field wear gloves to help them to catch the ball and prevent injury to their hands.
- Billiards glove
- Boxing glove: a specialized padded mitten
- Cricket gloves
- The wicket keeper wears large webbed gloves, similar to those used in baseball.
- The batsmen wear gloves with heavy padding on the back, to protect the fingers from being struck with the ball.
- Cycling gloves
- Driving gloves - often leather to improve grip on the steering wheel.
- Eating glove
- Football - Goalkeeper's gloves
- fencing glove
- Falconry glove
- Gardening glove
- Ice hockey mitt
- Riding gloves
- Motorcycling gloves
- Scuba diving gloves :
- cotton gloves; good abrasion but no thermal protection
- wet gloves; made of neoprene and allowing water entry
- dry gloves; made of rubber with a latex wrist seal to prevent water entry
- Yachting
- Wired glove
- Oven gloves - or Oven mitts, are used when cooking
- Washing glove: a tool for washing the body (one's own, or of a child, a patient, a lover).
- Wheelchair gloves - for users of manual Wheelchairs
- Power Glove - an alternate controller for use with the Nintendo Entertainment System
[edit] Fashion gloves
- wedding and cotillion gloves
- evening gloves
The wearing of gloves as a woman's fashion accessory fell out of favour in the latter decades of the 20th century, except that girls still wear gloves as part of "dressy" outfits, such as church on Easter Sunday. Glove length was dictated by the time of day. Ladies gloves for formal and semi-formal wear come in three lengths for women: wrist ('matinee' length), elbow, and opera or full-length (over the elbow, reaching to the biceps).
The most expensive are full-length gloves custom-made of kid leather. Satin and stretch satin materials are extremely popular and there are mass-produced varieties well within the average budget.
Gentlemen only wear fashion gloves on the most formal of occasions. This is somewhat subjective, as men also may wear "fashion" gloves outside of white tie occasions. Some find it to be in personal style, to protect their hands from allergens and germs, or to remove themselves from physical contact.
[edit] Winter gloves
- acrylic
- woolen
- leather
- other
[edit] See also
[edit] External sources and references
- Pliny the Younger: Selected Letters
- The History of Herodotus by Herodotus, Volume VI, at classics.mit.edu
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
