Sir Bernard Spilsbury, a famous British pathologist, was called in as the chief medical examiner on the case. Spilsbury asked officers to collect the remains for further examination. Officers rolled up their sleeves and started tossing body parts into buckets, “as if they were sorting fish on a quayside.” Shocked, Spilsbury asked them if no rubber gloves were available, and they responded that they never wore protective gear of any kind.
By the next big murder case, Spilsbury had created the “Murder Bag,” a kit for police officers to carry that included rubber gloves, a magnifying glass, a tape measure, a ruler, swabs, sample bags, forceps, scissors, a scalpel, and other instruments. Suiting up with gloves before entering an active crime scene has been standard procedure ever since. The glove method isn’t the only thing the Mahon/Kaye case inspired, by the way—Alfred Hitchcock used details from the sensational story when he was making Rear Window.
From the narrative, one gets the idea that the gloves were more to protect the investigators than to protect the evidence at that point. You can read the gruesome story of that murder case at Mental Floss.
Source: neatorama