THE THIRD HUXLEY LECTURE' 



Delivered before the .Medical School of Charing Cross Hospital, on October 2, 1900. 



When the Council of Charing Cross Hospital did me the great honour of 

 asking me to deliver the tliird of the lectures instituted by them in memor\- of 

 Huxley, the illustrious former pupil of their school, at the same time conveying 

 their desire that the subject of it should be my own work, I at first reluctantl\- 

 declined, on the ground that what I had done had been for the most part alread\' 

 published. But when the Dean, wlio assured me that he expressed the unani- 

 mous wish of his colleagues, urged me to reconsider my decision, I felt unable 

 to refuse compliance wath a request so very kindly made. It also occurred 

 to me that, as my papers are scattered through a variety of media of publication, 

 extending over a pretty long period, the earlier ones especially being probably 

 little known to the present generation, it might perhaps be not without interest 

 for me to refer on this occasion to some of the more salient of such observations 

 as bear more or less directly upon the antiseptic S3^stem of surgery, while I 

 should at the same time be complying with a wish that has been expressed that 

 I should give some indication of the circumstances that led me to that subject. 



As a student at University College I was greatly attracted by Dr. Sharpey's 

 lectures, which inspired me with a love of physiology that has never left me. 

 My father, whose labours (vide ' On the Improvement of Achromatic Compound 

 Microscopes ', by J. J. Lister, Esq., Phil. Trans., 1830) had raised the com- 

 pound microscope from little better than a scientific toy to the powerful engine 

 for investigation which it then already was, had equipped me with a first-rate 

 instrument of that kind, and I employed it with keen interest in verifying the 

 details of histology brought before us by our great master. \Mien I afterwards 

 became house surgeon under Mr. Erichsen, I applied the same means of 

 observation to pathological objects. 



One of the earliest records that I find of such work is in the form of 

 sketches of the corpuscles in the pus in a case of pyaemia, which occurred 

 after excision of the elbow in a little boy. The cancellated tissue of the 

 humerus at the seat of operation and the adjacent part of the medullary ca\ity 

 were seen, on post mortem examination, to be occupied h\ thick, \elKnv jni>, 

 and similar lluid distended the brachial and axiUary \eins ami thrir branches. 



' This lecture was pubhslied lu the British Medical J ourual oi October 6. ic.oo. It was reprinted 

 with corrections, in a volunie published in February i<)07. 



