698 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



world; and where he continued the elaboration of his system, in- 

 troducing some of the simplifications we have already described. In 

 1877 he was appointed to suceeed Sir William Ferguson as professor 

 of clinical surgery at King's College, London. He held this posi- 

 tion till 1893. In 1876 he was appointed by the Privy Council to 

 the General Medical Council for Scotland. 



Lister's later writings, consisting mainly of articles scattered 

 through various periodicals, have been devoted chiefly to subjects 

 connected with the germ theory of disease, and include investiga- 

 tions into the processes of fermentation and the life history of cer- 

 tain micro-organisms, and papers on the bearing of bacteriology upon 

 surgical treatment. 



The discovery of the antiseptic system is a matter of such tran- 

 scendent importance as almost to obscure the many other improve- 

 ments and modifications which Lister introduced into surgical 

 practice. He devised a way of bloodless amputation by simply 

 elevating the limb, so that an emptying of it was effected both 

 mechanically and by means of a contraction of the arteries conse- 

 quent upon the altered position. He invented a tourniquet for 

 compressing the abdominal aorta, whereby the haemorrhage was 

 diminished in operations in the neighborhood of the hip joint. He 

 introduced the amputation called by his name, and an operation for 

 excision of the wrist. He was the first to undertake osteotomy for 

 the purpose of rectifying deformity of the limbs. He advocated a 

 more complete method than had been practiced of operating on can- 

 cer of the breast, and introduced the treatment of fractures of the 

 patella and other bones communicating with joints by means of open 

 incisions and wiring. 



The medal of the Royal Society was conferred on Dr. Lister in 

 1880; and in 1881 the prize of the French Academy of Sciences 

 was awarded to him for his observations and discoveries in the appli- 

 cation of the antiseptic treatment in surgery. In 1883 he was made 

 a baronet on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone. In 1896 he 

 was president of the British Association, and in his presidential 

 address gave an extremely modest narrative of his experiments and 

 the development of his aseptic method. He has received numerous 

 honorary degrees and hofiors from colleges and learned societies. He 

 succeeded Lord Kelvin as president of the Royal Society in 1895; 

 was raised to the peerage as Lord Kinnear in 1897; and is surgeon 

 extraordinary to the Queen. 



