554 Sir William Macewm [June 7, 



the course of the ray becomes invisil)le to the eye as soon as the air 

 has deposited all its solid particles. 



When this deposition has occurred, any organic infusion may be 

 introduced into the box and kept there without undergoing the least 

 putrefactive or fermentive change, and without producing bacteria. 



Tyndall, in a letter to Pasteur on the subject, concludes : " For 

 the first time in the history of science we are justified in cherishing 

 confidently the hope that, as far as epidemic diseases are concerned, 

 medicine will soon be delivered from empiricism and placed on a real 

 scientific basis. ..." 



Lister Promulgates and Introduces the Practice of the 

 Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds. 



While Professor of Surgery in Glasgow, Lister was constantly 

 speculating on the cause of inflammation and the cause of putre- 

 faction in wounds, and during a discussion with friends, it was 

 suggested to him that Pasteur's papers on fermentation might ))e of 

 use in elucidating what seemed to be somewhat kindred processes. 

 These papers of Pasteur came as a revelation to Lister, especially as 

 he had not beeii cognisant of tlie observations made al)OUt thirty 

 years previously by Schultze (1886), Schwann (1887), and Cagniard- 

 Latour (1888), which had really laid the foundation of the germ 

 theory and modern bacteriology. 



The perusal of Pasteur's work threw a flood of light on the 

 subject of decomposition in wounds, and Lister at once accepted the 

 theory, and began a search for a something which would prevent 

 the entrance of living organisms into wounds, believing that if such 

 were found the healing of a wound would proceed " just as if it 

 were subcutaneous." 



About this time creosote — the active agent of which was carbolic 

 acid— was used for disinfecting sewage, and Lister secured a sample 

 of carbolic acid from Dr. Anderson, Professor of Chemistry in 

 Glasgow University. He tried it in August 1865, with results 

 which justified his hypothesis. 



As in the case of many other discoveries, more than one person 

 had come to the same conclusion (juite independently. 



Jules Lemaire had been similarly impressed with Pasteur's 

 observations, and had tried to eradicate the germs from wounds by 

 means of chemical antiseptics, and especially by carbolic acid. He 

 seems to have recognized the true basis of antiseptc surgery, the 

 germ theory of fermentation. He published his researches in 1863.* 



In the wards of the Glasgow Royal Lifirmary, which, previously, 



* W. Gheyuc, Antiseptic Surgery, p. 356, London, 1882. 



