THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 9 



secure acceptance! The seniors among us who lived 

 through that instructive period remember well that 

 only those who were awake when the dawn appeared 

 assented at once to the brilliant demonstration. We are 

 better prepared to-day ; and a great discovery like that 

 of Schaudinn is immediately put to the test by experts 

 in many lands, and a verdict is given in a few months. 

 We may have become more plastic and receptive, but 

 I doubt it ; even our generation that great generation 

 of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, had a 

 practical demonstration of the slowness of the accepta- 

 tion of an obvious truth in the long fight for the aseptic 

 treatment of wounds. There may be present some who 

 listened, as I did in October, 1873, to an introductory 

 lecture at one of the largest of the metropolitan schools, 

 the burden of which was the finality of surgery. The 

 distinguished author and teacher, dwelling on the 

 remarkable achievements of the past, concluded that 

 the art had all but reached its limit, little recking that 

 within a mile from where he spoke, the truth for which 

 he and thousands had been striving now a conscious 

 possession in the hands of Joseph Lister would revo- 

 lutionize it. With scores of surgeons here and there 

 throughout the world this truth had been a latent posses- 

 sion. Wounds had healed per primam since Machaon's 

 day; and there were men before Joseph Lister who 

 had striven for cleanliness in surgical technique; but 

 not until he appeared could a great truth become 

 so manifest that it everywhere compelled acquiescence. 

 Yet not without a battle a long and grievous battle, as 

 many of us well knew who had to contend in hospitals 

 with the opposition of men who could not not who 

 would not see the truth. 



Sooner or later insensibly, unconsciously the iron 



