After the needle was inserted into a vein, the sealed end within the rubber cuff was broken so that the vacuum pulled the blood into the tube. The needle was then removed and the guard tube, which covered the needle, was quickly replaced and the vacuum tube taken to the bacteriology laboratory. Based on Judd’s and Simon’s study, Hynson, Westcott, and Dunning, a pharmaceutical company located in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1922 manufactured and marketed the first evacuated blood collection tube. Its use, however, was limited to the collection of blood cultures.
