Esmarch bandage in its modern form is a narrow hard rubber tourniquet

Tourniquet

An emergency tourniquet is a tightly tied band applied around a body part sometimes used in an attempt to stop severe traumatic bleeding. Tourniquets are also used during venipuncture and other medical procedures. Severe bleeding means the loss of more than 1,000 ml of blood. This flow of blood...

 with a chain fastener

Fastener

A fastener is a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together.Fasteners can also be used to close a container such as a bag, a box, or an envelope; or they may involve keeping together the sides of an opening of flexible material, attaching a lid to a container,...

 that is used to control bleeding by applying it around a limb

Limb (anatomy)

A limb is a jointed, or prehensile , appendage of the human or other animal body....

 in such a way that blood

Blood

Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....

 is expelled from it

Exsanguination

Exsanguination is the fatal process of hypovolemia , to a degree sufficient enough to cause death. One does not have to lose literally all of one's blood to cause death...

. This prevents the flow of blood to or from the distal area, making it easier to operate

Surgery

Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

. The limb is often elevated as the elastic pressure is applied.

The original version was designed by Friedrich von Esmarch, professor of surgery at the University of Kiel

University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and is generally used in battlefield medicine

Battlefield medicine

Battlefield medicine, also called field surgery and later combat casualty care, is the treatment of wounded soldiers in or near an area of combat. Civilian medicine has been greatly advanced by procedures that were first developed to treat the wounds inflicted during combat...

. Esmarch himself had been Surgeon General to the German army during the Franco-German War. It consisted of a three-sided piece of linen or cotton, the base measuring 4 feet and the sides 2 feet 10 inches. It could be used folded or open, and applied in thirty-two different ways. An improved form was devised by Bernhard von Langenbeck

Bernhard von Langenbeck

Bernhard Rudolf Konrad von Langenbeck was a German surgeon known as the developer of Langenbeck's amputation and founder of Langenbeck's Archives of Surgery....

later on.