INTRODUCTION XX1ll 
tried the student on his first introduction to surgical work just as much as the 
unaccustomed sights of the operating theatre. It is hardly necessary to add 
that fatal wound diseases and complications were never absent at anv time 
from the hospitals of that day. 
Such then was the state of surgical practice about the time when Lister 
began his work. From his student days, the subjects which had most attracted 
his attention were inflammation and the general septic diseases which so con- 
stantly followed the infliction of wounds, and when he commenced surgical 
teaching in Edinburgh the nature of inflammation occupied a very prominent 
place in his lectures as in his thoughts. Being dissatisfied with the views held at 
that time, he proceeded to investigate the subject for himself, and produced his 
classical papers on the early stages of inflammation, on the pigment cells of the 
frog, and on the nervous regulation of the arteries ; subsequently, as has been 
mentioned above, his attention was turned to the subject of coagulation of 
the blood, and to the behaviour of blood in healthy and diseased blood-vessels. 
But although these investigations furnished most important results and were of 
inestimable value in his subsequent work, yet they did not directly lead him to 
the antiseptic principle in surgery. 
In spite of the ight thrown on inflammatory processes by his researches, 
there still remained the fact that inflammation and suppuration constantly 
occurred after the infliction of open wounds, and that the various septic diseases 
frequently attacked the simplest wounds and rendered the most skilful operations 
unavailing. Most surgeons had become resigned to the occurrence of inflamma- 
tion and suppuration in wounds, and looked on them as natural and inevitable 
consequences. Many indeed regarded the occurrence of ‘ healthy ’ suppuration as 
a thing to be desired, because it was observed that once suppuration was 
established the patient’s condition improved. It was therefore assumed that 
the sooner suppuration occurred the better. Hence the aim of many was to 
hasten the formation of this ‘laudable’ pus, and at the same time to control 
‘the excessive action’ in the wound which was supposed to lead to the various 
septic diseases. 
This was not Lister’s view. His ideal of what should happen in a wound 
was what occurred in a subcutaneous injury such as a simple fracture, in 
which repair took place without any inflammation, suppuration, constitutional 
disease, or general sepsis. In his opinion the occurrence of inflammation and 
suppuration in a wound was by no means a desirable thing, but was, in fact, 
contrary to the natural processes, as exemplified by subcutaneous injuries, and 
was therefore to be avoided rather than aimed at. 
At an early period Lister had come to recognise that the essential cause 
