INTRODUCTION XV 
told than by the author himself, so that it is here only necessary briefly to 
review Lister's principal investigations in physiology and pathology as con- 
tributions to these sciences. 
It is not surprising that Lister’s first investigations should have been 
histological. His father, Joseph Jackson Lister, who had by his optical experi- 
ments very greatly improved the compound microscope, was an accomplished 
microscopist and made important discoveries concerning the structure of zoo- 
phytes and acidians. At this period the theory of the microscope was being 
rapidly developed, and each consequent improvement in this instrument of 
research opened up further fields to the investigator. Kdlliker had recently 
discovered the cellular structure of plain muscular tissue and the first investiga- 
tions of Lister were concerned with the contractile tissue of the iris! and skin?, 
and with the structure of involuntary muscular fibre generally.2 The observa- 
tions and conclusions of Kolliker were at this time by no means universally 
accepted, but Lister’s work not only vindicated their accuracy, but cleared 
away many apparent discrepancies between the observations of different 
observers. He also made a number of new observations upon the structure 
and distribution of smooth muscle fibres. These three papers were illustrated 
by excellent camera-lucida drawings made by Lister himself, which are repro- 
duced in the present volume. 
At the time when the last of these papers was written Lister had already 
commenced an inquiry into the process of inflammation,’ a subject to which 
he seems to have been irresistibly attracted from the first ; around it, hence- 
forth, almost all his researches centred, although he often made wide excursions 
to investigate physiological problems encountered in efforts to interpret some 
one or other of the processes concerned in inflammation. 
The investigation of the nature of the process of inflammation was, tor 
the most part, made by direct observation upon the frog’s web, a method 
which permitted the study of the phenomena from the beginning. Therein 
lay its great fertility. His observations were, however, carefully controlled 
by observations made upon the higher animals and man. The phenomena ot 
stasis, and the vascular reaction, immediate and subsequent, following the 
application of irritants of all classes were for the first time accurately described. 
The former was shown to be due to the direct action of the irritant upon the 
blood-cells and blood-vessels, and the latter to be occasioned reflexly through the 
nervous system. These observations upon the early stages of inflammation were 
communicated to the Royal Society in 1857. They have formed the basis of 
all subsequent discoveries, and the conclusions drawn are as valid to-day as then. 
Vol dy ps 3. 2 Vol. i, p. 9. #NW6l.4, Ds 18. Vol. 1, p. 200. 
