Red Wool Bandage Medical Dept US ARMY WW2

Red Wool Bandage Medical Dept with original wrapper,  US ARMY WW2, mint condition. 

Red Cross nursing manuals from the 1910s state that red flannel was preferred to white for bandaging rheumatic joints, presumably because the dye had some medical value. The color red was associated with healing according to the Encyclopedia of Folk Medicine. Red flannel bandages were used for wrapping injuries and for backaches, and were considered efficacious in preventing and treating infectious diseases such as whooping cough, scarlet fever, and smallpox. By the early twentieth century, the red flannel bandage was firmly entrenched in medical practice although the medicinal advantage of the color was no longer recognized.