562 Sir William Mamwen [June 7. 



University to have snch a man in it, and a priceless privilege to the 

 students — to those of them who could appreciate it — to be allowed 

 to stand silently by and watch the haliit of mind and see how the 

 brain worked. He was a man in earnest, and therefore he taught. 

 His teaching was supported by direct appeal to nature. He accumu- 

 lated data by oliservation and experiment, from l)oth of which 

 careful deductions were drawn. As a thinker. Lister did good by 

 laying bare the difficulties he encountered in carryiuir out his pro- 

 jects, and his modes of overcoming these difficulties. In this way 

 he stimulated and propagated the thinking faculties of the student. 

 He showed his methods and thereby paved the way for others to 

 follow. 



His view of physiology in relation to life and of pathology in 

 relation to disease was philosophic. A philosophic pathologist 

 differs from the practitioner, 'as much as the astronomer, who formu- 

 lates the laws of the stars, differs from the mariner who sets his 

 course by deductions derived therefrom. Lister was, therefore, in 

 some respects alone, as a man of that kind must l)e. 



In Glasgow Lister not only promulgated the theory of antiseptic 

 surgery, but he worked out and thoroughly established its utility in 

 practice, leaving behind him a body of enthusiastic disciples. After 

 spending, as Tlegius Professor of Surgery, nine of the most active 

 years of his life, and those fullest of scientific fruition. Lister passed 

 quietly from Glasgow without public recognition of his services, the 

 general body of citizens being unaware that a great scientific achieve- 

 ment had been wrought in their midst. It was long afterwards, 

 " when all the world wondered," that Glasgow became alive to what 

 it had possessed— and lost. 



The Students' Appreciation of Lister. 



As to the manner in which Lister was viewed by the Glasgow 

 students, the following is an extract from a letter written me by a 

 friend and fellow-student, which so well expresses my own views that 

 I give it in his words : — 



" We students w^ere all very much impressed by the personality of 

 Lister. His mild expression and his grave demeanour gave him 

 benign dignity which could uot fail to command respect. Even the 

 impediment in his speech— which in another man might have been 

 a source of annoyance to his hearers, seemed in his case only to add 

 to the weight of what he said ; and as he spoke slowly not a word of 

 his lecture was lost. You remember how his students more or less 

 unconsciously fell into a way of speaking, which was a manifest echo 

 of the master's voice. This affectation on the part of the students 

 was simply an indication of the hero-worship which pervaded Lister's 

 class, for "there is no doubt we all idolized liim. 



" I understand it has been said of Lister that he was not a good 



