Joseph Sampson Gamgee
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![Joseph sampson gamgee photograph](/images/Joseph_Sampson_Gamgee.jpg")
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A portrait of the surgeon Joseph Sampson Gamgee known better as Sampson Gamgee, invented Gamgee Tissue, a cotton wool gauze used in surgery and to dress wounds. 'Gamgee' sometimes being adopted as an alternative local name for cotton wool.
Tolkien claims that the name for Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings was not actually inspired by Sampson Gamgee but more from what he thought, as a child, was an amusing name for cotton wool.
Reference: Archives: Portraits/Gamgee