Compression Stockings (therapy)

Use of compression therapy is not new. As early as the Neolithic period (5000-2500 BCE), images of soldiers with bandaged lower extremities were found in the drawings of the caves of Tassili in Sahara. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, which dates to roughly 1600 BCE, included additional evidence of mechanical compression therapy for legs. Hippocrates treated his patients' leg ulcers with tight bandages, which were described in his Corpus Hippocraticum (450–350 BCE). Galen (130-200 CE) used wool and linen compression bandages to prevent blood from pooling in the legs and Oribassius (324 CE) used to treat leg ulcers with tight bandages.