38u Sir Rickman John Godlee [March 12, 



WEEKLY EVEXIXO MEETING, 

 Friday, March 12, 1915. 



Sir Ja3Ies Crichtox-Browxe, J.P. M.D. LL.D. 

 D.Sc. F.R.S., in the Chair. 



Sir PtiCK:^iAX Johx Godlee, Bart., K.C.Y.O. M.S. F.K.C.S. 



Back to Lister. 



Whex Sir James Crichton-Browne, amongst whose many charms is a 

 singular feUcity of phraseology, invited me to undertake this task, he 

 kindly supplied the title. It sounded rather startling, but as I could 

 not think of a better, I humbly accepted it. It shows that I have no 

 great discovery to announce, no new theory to propound, l)ut only to 

 take you back over old, well-trodden ground, to try to interest you 

 in very technical matters, and to suggest that, in this particular case, 

 reaction has overstepped the bounds of moderation, and that, as in 

 many other fields, the most modern ideas are not always the best. 



I will not trace the various steps by which Lister was led to his 

 conclusions about the causes of suppuration and hospital diseases, 

 nor draw a lurid picture of the deplorable mortality from these dis- 

 eases before the introduction of the antiseptic system of treatment. 

 I must, however, give you a short account of his first antiseptic 

 method, which was founded on the discoveries of Pasteur, and explain 

 in what way and for what reasons he afterwards modified it. If I 

 succeed in making this clear it will be easy to understand how the 

 relinquishment of much that he at first considered essential, but 

 which later discoveries proved to be superfluous, led others to give it 

 up still more — much more than he ever considered it prudent to do. 

 It will then be maintained that what he feared has come true : that 

 the results obtained to-day, good though they are, are not so good as 

 they would be if we were to return, perhaps not altogether, but 

 almost, to those simpler and safer methods which Lister employed 

 at the end of his active career. 



Let us begin by trying to place ourselves in Lister's position 

 during the years preceding 1865, when the writings of Pasteur were 

 first brought to his notice. It was that of every thoughtful surgeon 

 in those days. Of all the dealings of Providence with men — re- 

 member I am speaking of sixty years ago — not the least mysterious 

 appeared to be the ordinance that the life-giving air, heaven's blessed 

 l)reeze, without which life cannot be maintained for more than a few 

 minutes, and on the purity of which man's vigour depends, should 



