A staple of old cartoons is that when a character is injured he has white adhesive bandages arranged in a cross.
How long have there been adhesive strips, and why were/are they depicted as crossed instead of single strips?
I don’t think the crossed bangages are the same as the adhesive bandage strips we are familiar with. Before the invention of adhesive bandage strips, i would guess two crossed strips of adhesive tape secured a gauze pad better than one strip of tape.
Taping a gauze pad down with a # of tape seals all the edges to keep dirt out. The legs are to give more surface to help keep it from getting pulled off.
How about on cartoon tires?
It may have been poetic license. That would explain why anvils turned out to be so unimportant in life.
Do Not Put Banana In Refrigeratoooorrrrrr!
Even with today’s bandages, I will sometimes run a second bandage across the top of the first one, rotated 90°. If the wound is in a location that flexes a lot, or spans a long distance, it keeps the sides of the original bandage from wrinkling, leaving gaps for dirt to get into the wound.