Interesting Facts: 5 Inventions That Started Out as Something Else

 

5 Inventions That Started Out as Something Else 

Innovation doesn’t always follow a straight line. Some of history’s most famous inventions, including the microwave, were born from accidents. Others, though not strictly accidental, ended up serving a completely different purpose than originally intended — such as the blood pressure medication that ended up becoming a famous hair loss remedy. 

Silly String

Silly String may be a nostalgic party staple now, but it was originally a medical product. In the 1960s, chemist Robert P. Cox and inventor Leonard A. Fish set out to create an instant spray-on cast for broken bones. During their experiments, which included testing upward of 500 different spraying vessels, they discovered the material could be sprayed in long, sticky strands from a certain pressurized can. 

Play-Doh

Anyone who’s cleaned Play-Doh out of carpet or picked up all its little crumbs knows how messy it can be, so it may come as a surprise that it was originally used as a cleaner. In the 1930s, Cincinnati-based soap manufacturer Kutol began making its own version of a doughy putty used to remove soot from wallpaper. This was a common need at a time when homes were still primarily heated by coal furnaces, and after Kroger stores agreed to carry Kutol’s wall cleaner, the once-struggling company found new footing. But by the end of World War II, homes largely switched to gas and oil heating, and demand for the cleaner began to wane. 

Listerine

Listerine’s minty burn wasn’t always meant to freshen breath. When the product was created in 1879 by surgeon Joseph Lawrence in St. Louis, Missouri, it was intended as a surgical antiseptic. Its name was even an homage to British surgeon Joseph Lister, who pioneered sterile surgery in the 1860s. 

Treadmills

We know treadmills as a modern fitness staple that, depending who you ask, are more pain than pleasure. This is somewhat fitting, given the exercise tool’s punishing origins. In the early 19th century, British engineer William Cubitt designed the first treadmill as a form of prison labor. Inmates, often in groups, were forced to walk on large rotating wheels for upward of eight hours a day. The wheel power was typically used to grind grain or pump water, supposedly making it a productive means of punishment designed to rehabilitate prisoners.

Rogaine

Rogaine has long been a popular hair loss treatment, but that use was discovered as a happy side effect of another drug. Its evolution began in the 1950s, when chemists at the Upjohn pharmaceutical company — also responsible for developing Xanax and Motrin before being acquired by Pfizer — developed a drug called minoxidil to treat ulcers, which was later found to lower blood pressure. In the 1970s, the FDA approved minoxidil as an oral blood pressure medication, and patients who took the drug began noticing increased hair growth as well.

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