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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tion and willingness that the plan 

 should be carried into effect. 



The great discovery of the antiseptic 

 method in surgery was first announced 

 in 1867. In an address before the 

 meeting of the British Medical Asso- 

 ciation held in Dublin in that year, 

 Lister said: "When it had been shown 

 by the researches of Pasteur that the 

 septic property of the atmosphere de- 

 pended, not on the oxygen or any gase- 

 ous constituent, but on minute organ- 

 isms suspended in.it. which owed their 

 energy to their vitality, it occurred to 

 me that decomposition in the injured 

 part might be avoided without exclu- 

 ding the air, by applying as a dressing 

 some material capable of destroying 

 the life of the floating particles." 



Lister used carbolic acid as an anti- 

 septic, and although the methods were 

 at first imperfect, the results were re- 

 markable. The wards of which he had 

 charge in the Glasgow Infirmary were 

 especially infected with gangrene, but 

 in a short time became the healthiest in 

 the world ; while other wards, separated 

 by a passageway, retained their infec- 

 tion. Like all great discoveries, Lis- 

 ter's antiseptic methods have been ex- 

 tended and improved, being now rather 

 aseptic than antiseptic, the precautions 

 being largely directed toward prevent- 

 ing infection by sterilization. It must 

 be remembered that in addition to the 

 work for which Lister is famous, he 

 has made important contributions to 

 surgery and the practise of medicine. 

 Lister's father was a member of the 

 Society of Friends; a man of business, 

 but also engaged in scientific work. 

 He was a fellow of the Royal Society, 

 as are also his son, Arthur, and his 

 grandson, J. J. Lister, the brother and 

 nephew of Lord Lister. Lister mar- 

 ried the daughter of the eminent sur- 

 geon, Professor Syme, to whose chair 

 at Edinburgh he succeeded. He has 

 no heir. Lister became assistant sur- 

 geon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary 

 in 1856, and moved to Glasgow as pro- 



fessor of surgery in 1860, returning to 

 Edinburgh in 1S69. He then became 

 professor of clinical surgery in King's 

 College, London, in 1877. 



Lord Lister has been honored by the 

 government by being raised to the peer- 

 age; by his fellow men of science by 

 his election to the presidency of the 

 British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science and of the Royal So- 

 ciety; by his colleagues in medicine 

 and surgery by the naming in his 

 honor of the Lister Institute, one of 

 the most important institutions in 

 the world for medical research. But 

 his highest honor is the use in every 

 hospital of the world of the antiseptic 

 system of surgery that he discovered. 

 This treatment has relieved endless 

 suffering and saved innumerable lives, 

 and has permitted the extension of 

 surgery to operations which without 

 it would have been impossible. It is 

 indeed the foundation on which modern 

 surgery is built. 



THE CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH 

 OF LOUIS AGASSIZ 

 On May 28, 1S07, Jean Louis 

 Rudolphe Agassiz was born in the 

 Canton of Freiburg, Switzerland, 

 his father being pastor of the protest- 

 ant parish of Motier. The centenary 

 of his birth is being celebrated at Har- 

 vard University and at Cornell Uni- 

 versity. At Harvard there is a gather- 

 ing of his former pupils with addresses 

 by President Eliot and Professor Niles. 

 At Cornell, where Agassiz was non- 

 resident professor, a commemorative 

 address is to be made by Professor 

 Burt G. Wilder. Professor Niles and 

 Professor Wilder were among the 

 group of eminent naturalists who were 

 pupils of Agassiz, which includes, in 

 addition to his son, Mr. Alexander 

 Agassiz, Bickmore, Clark, Hartt, Hyatt, 

 Lyman, Morse, Packard, Putnam, 

 Scudder, Shaler, Stimpson, Tenney, 

 Verrill and Ward. 



A biographical sketch of Agassiz 

 will lie found in the fourth volume of 

 The Popular Science Monthly. In 



