Natural rubber latex is derived from the Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), a member of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. Primarily found in South America. Charles Marie de La Condamine is believed to have introduced samples of rubber to the Académie Royale des Sciences of France in 1736. A paper by François Fresneau published in 1755 describing many of the properties of rubber has been referred to as the first scientific paper on rubber. Joseph Priestley, in 1770, noted that a piece of the latex material was very effective for rubbing off pencil marks on paper, hence the name rubber. In 1876, Henry Wickham in 1876 is believed to have gathered thousands of para rubber tree seeds from Brazil, germinated them in Kew Gardens, England and then sent them over to India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Indonesia and other countries. Rubber is drawn out into sheets by passing it through a roller machine. workers making sheets of rubber is shown below. The picture is from http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/agri-biz/rubber-production-up-62-in-april/article2009391.ece
The picture at the beginning of the article shows the hand of an young gentleman who was making sheets from raw rubber material. The hand was drawn into the machine and crushed in between the rollers which resulted in injuries to the skin, nails and tendons, all of which were treated by plastic surgery. while attempting to get a good functional repair one must also attempt to get a good cosmetic result. It is important that safety guidelines be immediately incorporated into this small scale rubber cottage industry since one can see how in the picture above how easy it is for the worker's hand to get drawn in between the rollers. A safety grid that prevents the hand from approaching the rollers would be the simplest safety measure+
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