SKETCH OF SIR JOSEPH LISTER. 695 



others in the living state, putrefaction might be prevented, however 

 freely the air with its oxygen might enter." He had heard of car- 

 bolic acid as having a remarkable deodorizing effect on sewage, and, 

 having obtained a quantity, determined to try it in compound frac- 

 tures. " Applying it undiluted to the wound, with an arrangement 

 for its occasional renewal, I had the joy of seeing those formidable 

 injuries follow the same safe and tranquil course as simple fractures 

 in which the skin remains unbroken." The earliest antiseptic dress- 

 ings were very cumbrous. At first an antiseptic crust of blood 

 and pure carbolic acid was formed, and protected by a sheet of 

 block tin; next carbolic acid and oil were used; then a layer 

 of putty made with carbolic acid was applied; after this, a plas- 

 ter made of shellac and carbolic acid. This was superseded by 

 the typical dressing, or the Lister bandage, in which a layer of 

 waterproof silk, the " protective," was placed over the wound 

 to protect it from the direct action of the irritant substance in 

 the antiseptic dressing materials; over this came some eight or 

 more layers of carbolized gauze or muslin, with a sheet of gutta- 

 percha tissue between the outer two of these. The whole was then 

 bound round with carbolized gauze, so as to effect as far as possible 

 an air-tight inclosure of the wound. With this was associated a 

 spraying of carbolic acid when the wound was being treated or the 

 bandages were being applied or changed, in order to prevent the ac- 

 cess of microbes in the air. As the structure of the bandage became 

 gradually simpler and more convenient, so the system itself was 

 improved and simplified till, while the principle remains the same, 

 the mode of applying it has become very different from what it was 

 at first. The most important of these improvements seems to have 

 been suggested in 1871 or 1872 by a paper of Dr. Burdon Sander- 

 son's showing that bacteria, unlike the spores of fungi, are deprived 

 of vitality by mere desiccation at an ordinary temperature, so that, 

 while a drop of water from ordinary sources or the contact of a moist 

 surface is sure to lead to bacteric development and putrefaction in an 

 organic substance susceptible of that change, the access of dust from 

 exposure to the atmosphere merely induces the growth of fungi and 

 comparatively insignificant chemical alteration. " If this were 

 true," Lister said, in a communication to the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh made in April, 1873, " it would be needless to provide an 

 antiseptic atmosphere in carrying out the antiseptic system of treat- 

 ment; and all that would be requisite in the performance of a sur- 

 gical operation would be to have the skin of the part about to be 

 operated upon treated once for all with an efficient antiseptic, while 

 the hands of the surgeon and his assistants and also his instruments 

 were similarly purified; a dressing being afterward used to guard 



