displays/exhibits, history of medicine, visual studies
Why are hospitals associated with the colour green?
Ever wondered why hospitals are associated with the colour green? Green surgery scrubs, green operating theatres, green-painted instruments, and so on and so forth.
A temporary exhibition called ‘Artifact Spotlight: The Colour of Medicine’ at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa shows how the colour green conquered the hospital world during the 20th century:
Green was a popular choice. Surgeons first added “spinach-leaf green” to their clothing in 1914 to reduce glare from traditional hospital whites. In the 1930s, hospital decorators used green to influence patient moods. It carried associations with nature, growth and recovery. Tiled surgical suites, patient rooms, clothing and instruments all went green in the post World War Two era.
The exhibition curator, David Pantalony, is currently exploring the history of the colour green in medical instruments in the period 1950 to 1975 and in medicine in general. Look out for his forthcoming article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal this summer.
Here’s an another image of the exhibition:
15 Jul 2009 Thomas
I have heard the rumour that the colour green is also supposed to calm people. Does anybody know if this is true and if such psychological considerations had anything to do with choosing the colour green for hospital use? Personally the colour gives me another association. One that is a long way from hospitals doctors and clinics. It makes me think of the exam tables in high school. For one reason or another cloth on the tables was always green. It did not however seem so calming and soothing at the time.
I don’t know if green is calming, but I guess psychologists and psychatrists — and job application coaches (!) — know everything about the emotional responses to different colours. That said, I believe the green-covered examination table is a Danish thing; when I came to Denmark from Sweden I heard about this ‘green table’ (‘det grønne bord’) metonym for the first time. True to its antitraditional practice, exam tables at Roskilde University weren’t green either. Are examination tables in other countries green?
though green has a soothing effect on a person…..this is true …many people does not realise this but they choose to go to the morning walk in to some park or to some place which has greenery…….not only to get fresh air but the coor also give calming effect…….and more over hospitals use green because germs (many) could not cross the color green as it is most sensitive phase of light spectrum for them……..
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Green is a color of peace.Hospitals must maintain a peaceful environment.Patients in hospitals must be peaceful so that they will recover faster.
they where painted green because there surgeons were seeing ghostly images known as the ghost effect in the white walls during an operation so they changed it to green as other commentors say aswell to calm the mood off things
Any sources to this last comment?
I did not see a reference to the “ghost effect” in the earliest articulation of this trend by SF surgeon Harry Sherman (1914) sited in my article. But it makes sense.