OISCOVEHY 



It \v,is imt till iS/ii, soon after he had gone to Kdin- 

 biirgh to lill the position of his father-in-law (who had 

 retired through illness), that he finally decided to 

 publish his antiseptic system, thinking that it should no 

 longer be withheld from suffering humanity ; as he him- 

 self expressed it : " The antiseptic system has now been 

 in operation sufficiently long to enable us to form a 

 fair estimate of its influence upon the salubrity of a 

 hospital. Its effects upon the wards lately under my 

 care in the Glasgow Infirmary were in the highest 

 degree beneficial, converting them from some of the 

 most unhealthy in the kingdom into models of healthi- 

 ness. The interests of the pubHc demand that this 

 striking change should be generally known." 



Like all innovators, Lister was immediately attacked 

 from all sides, and more especially by the surgeons of 

 his own land. It was seven years before the surgeons 

 of London finally capitulated, and only then when he 

 came down from the North personally to demonstrate 

 his system to the unbelievers. The controversy 

 centres round the germ theory of Pasteur, and Lister 

 met with just the same trouble from his colleagues in 

 England as the great Frenchman was encountering 

 in France. He even went so far as to repeat some of 

 Pasteur's experiments with improvements of his own, 

 and in every case obtained results which confirmed the 

 conclusions arrived at by Pasteur regarding the origin 

 of putrefaction and disease. As is so often the case, 

 the recognition which was denied hm by his own coun- 

 trymen was accorded him by the surgeons of foreign 

 countries, and more especially by those of Germany 

 and Denmark. In 1875 the Congress of German 

 Surgeons met in Berlin, and sent hijn an invitation to 

 visit Germany, an invitation which he accepted in the 

 summer of that year, making a triumphal progress 

 from town to town. 



The hostility of the London surgeons to the new 

 system was galling to Lister, not because of any feeling 

 of personal slight, but because he did not like to think 

 of all the suffering still being endured by patients 

 from whom the advantages of the new system were 

 being wilfully withheld. It was on this account that 

 in 1877 he left Edinburgh and accepted a much inferior 

 post as Professor of Clinical Surgery at King's College, 

 London. Lister came South to fight for his system, 

 and it was not long before the results he obtained made 

 further fight unnecessary. The London surgeons gave 

 in ; the victory was gained finally ; but the triumph 

 did not come till two years later when he was acclaimed 

 by the International Congress of Medical Science in 

 .\msterdam. 



Lister was a man of extreme simplicity, and pos- 

 sessed of a serenity that was no doubt inherited from 

 his Quaker ancestors. As a surgeon he was bold with 

 the boldness born of certainty. His outlook on life 



was philosophical, and his system of antiseptic surgery 

 was the outcome of his view of life. It was only after 

 countless experiments that he finally fixed upon the 

 most suitable dressing to ensure the best results. 

 That dressing, a mercury-zinc-cyanide gauze, is still 

 in use to-day. 



Note. — The reader will find Lord Lister, His Life and Work. 

 by G. T. Wrench, M.D. (Lond.) (Fisher Unwin, 1913), most 

 interesting and readable. 



Books of the Month' 



The following is our monthly selection of books 

 which we commend to the notice of our readers. 



And Even Now. By M.^x Beerbohm. (Heinemann, 

 7s. 6d.) 

 Twenty recent essays delightfully written. 



Winsome Winnie and other Nonsense Novels. By 



Stephen Le acock. (John Lane, 5s.) 

 Excellent skits on the most usual plots of novels. 

 In the Mountains. Anonymous. (Macmillan, ys. 6d.) 

 Essavs on Books. By A. Clutton-Brock. (Methuen, 



6s.) 

 The Art of Letters. By Robert Lvnd. (Fisher 



Unwin, 15s.) 

 A History of Scotland from the Roman Evacuation to the 



Disruption. By Prof. C. S. Terry. (Cambridge 



Uni\-ersity Press, 20s.) 

 English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages {XlVth 



Century). By J. J. Jusserand. Translated by 



Lucy Toulmin Smith. (Fisher Unwin, 25s.) 

 The World of Sound. By Prof. Sir William Bragg, 



K.B.E., F.R.S. (Geo. BeU, 6s.) 

 The Christmas lectures of last year at the Royal 

 Institution. 



Instinct and the Unconscious. A contribution to a 

 Biological Theory of the Psycho-Neuroses. By 

 W. H. R. Rivers, M.D., D.Sc, F.R.5. (Cam- 

 bridge University Press, i6s.) 



Secrets of Earth and Sea. By Sir Ray Lankester, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S. (Methuen, Ss. bd.) 

 A delightful book of non-technical science. 



The Place Names of Northumberland and Durham. By 



Prof. Allen Mawer. (Cambridge Univei^ity 



Press, 20s.) 



.\n important volume of the Cambridge Archaeological 



and Ethnological Series dealing with the origins of the 



place-names of two counties. 



■ Short accounts of some of tliese and of other books will 

 be given next month. 



