

BEFORE AND AFTER LISTER 177 



opened the joint, but with every antiseptic precaution, 

 and wired the two fragments together. This elicited the 

 remark from a distinguished London surgeon : 



When this poor fellow dies, some one ought to 

 proceed against that man for mal-practice. 



But the man got well. Soon after this a case with an 

 enormous malignant tumor of the thigh, which had been 

 declined by other surgeons, came to Lister. He amputated 

 the limb and, 



the members of the staff and students visiting this 

 interesting patient were astonished to find him in a 

 day or two sitting up in bed and reading a paper, be- 

 ing free from pain and free from fever. 



A little later Paget and Hewitt both refused to operate 

 on a lady of social importance with a large tumor of the 

 shoulder-blade. Lister operated in the presence of Paget 

 and Hewitt and she recovered without suppuration, fever 

 or pain. 



Yet two years later still (1879) Savory, Thomas Bry- 

 ant, Tait and Spence, while claiming to practise antiseptic 

 surgery so far as strict cleanliness was concerned, declined 

 to subscribe to Lister's doctrines or to practise his method. 



But the enthusiastic acclaim of the International Medi- 

 cal Congress in Amsterdam in that same year set the seal 

 of approval of the profession at large. This may be said 

 to be the date of the general acceptance of Lister's theory 

 and Lister's method. London then capitulated. 



In 1902, twenty-three years later, London made ample 

 amends for its persistent early skepticism by a most gen- 

 erous outburst. The Royal Society, of which Lister had 

 been president and from which he had received two med- 

 als, gave a banquet in honor of the jubilee of his doctorate. 

 It was a most distinguished occasion and was made pre- 



