Injection equipment. Injection equipment from the 1930s to 1950s, including hypodermic needles and syringes, a drugs vial (far left) and a vial of catgut ligatures (right). Equipment like this was used for administering drugs which would be dest- royed by the digestive system if they were ingest- ed or are needed for only a local effect. Practical syringes were first demonstrated by Wren and Boyle in 1657. Practical hypodermic needles were invented independently in 1853 by Alexander Woods and Charles Gabriel Pravaz.