A medical bandage consists of a knit fabric made from loop yarns without inlaid yarns. The loop yarns are multifilament yarns having at least one elastic filament, a plurality of synthetic microfilaments and a plurality of cellulose or cellulosic filaments. The bandage has a linear and a non-linear stretching regime, with an operating point lying between them. When it is applied to a patient, it is elastically stretched to the operating point, which allows to generate reproducible, well defined compression forces.