May 7, 1896] 



NA TURE 



constructed apparatus ; and so, also, in respect of all else. 

 Steam thus provides us nowadays with non-irritant 

 bandaging materials free from germs with even greater 

 certainty than did their earlier imprc-ynation with anti- 

 septic substances, for bacteria may ah\ ays be found after 

 the lapse of time in dry bandages which have been 

 dipped in either carbolic acid or corrosive sublimate. 

 Instead of sponges we now use nuislin absorbents 

 sterilised by steam, and these, like every other fragment 

 of bandaging material, are burnt after being used but 

 once. In short, the technique of modern surgery is 

 based on Lister's method, and takes for its watchword 

 "asepsis without the use of antiseptics." Antisepsis has 

 given place to asepsis, but the latter is just as surely 

 based on the ground first broken by Lister. 



The results of operations carried out under aseptic 

 precautions are magnificent. Surgery now celebrates 

 its greatest triumphs in dealing with the skull and cranial 

 cavity, with the brain, spinal column and spinal canal, 

 with the thoracic and abdominal viscera, with bones and 

 joints, with tendons and nerves. For accidental injuries, 

 or wounds which arc already infected, the older anti- 

 septics are still employed, although we know that the 

 complete disinfection of a festering wound is most 

 difficult, nay almost impossible, for we cannot sufficiently 

 reach the microbes lurking in the substance of the tissues. 

 What we chiefly look to in this case is the efficient 

 removal of the purulent secretion from the wound, 

 securing this by free incisions and drainage. 



Sir Joseph Lister must indeed experience a glorious 

 feeling of deepest satisfaction when he surveys the 

 labours of his life. His work is accomplished and 

 brought to an incomparable conclusion. He has con- 

 quered and attained his object. When we but compare 

 the surgery of thirty years ago, before Lister appeared 

 on the scene, with that of to-day, what a change we see 1 

 We can scarcely carry ourselves back in imagination to 

 the pre-antiseptic days of surgery, but each one who 

 has known the older state of things from personal ex- 

 perience, cannot fail to realise with fuller understanding 

 and livelier joy how great a blessing Lister is to suffering 

 humanity. Formerly the healing of injuries or wounds 

 after an operation lay by no means certainly in the hands 

 of the surgeon. In many hospitals the conditions which 

 existed before the advent of Lister were simply incredible. 

 Innumerable victims were snatched away to death by 

 traumatic infections. And how do things stand now ? 

 To-day, thanks to Lister, we can heal the most grievous 

 Injuries and carry out the most difficult operations with- 

 out inflammation, suppuration, or fever. We have now 

 a firmly grounded confidence in our surgical art, and our 

 patients, too, trust to the capabilities of modern surgery, 

 for they know that we can heal the wounds we make. 

 The possibility now afforded by Listcrian method of 

 preserving and giving back health and life to our patients 

 has led to the growth among the surgeons of every nation 

 of a pride in their professional activities, which finds its 

 expression in the form of active theoretical and practical 

 work. .Science and art are international. The doctors 

 of all nations are fighting shoulder to shoulder for the 

 welfare of suffering humanity, and we ( icrmans recognise 

 without a suspicion of jealousy that the sun of modern 

 surgery first rose in the person of Sir Joseph Lister and in 

 NO. 1384, VOL. 5 4] 



England. The word surgery in its origin signifies a 

 handicraft ; but that which was thus manual at first has 

 become an art and a science which has, thanks above all 

 to Lister, raised itself with impetuous and surprising 

 speed in the last twenty years to a previously unknown 

 height of development. Modern surgery no longer stops 

 short at the exterior, but has gone even deeper, and now 

 includes within the sphere of its activity every organ of 

 the human body without exception. And for this man- 

 kind is indebted in the first place to Sir Joseph Lister. 

 As far as there is an earthly immortality it must be his, 

 for as long as ever surgery is scientifically discussed his 

 name cannot fail to be mentioned. 



H. TiLLMANN.S. 



Sir Joseph Lister is not, as has been often stated, a 

 Scotchman. He was born at Upton, in Essex, which was 

 then a pretty suburban village, though it has long since 

 been completely swallowed up in the metropolis, and here 

 the greater part of his early life was spent. His father, 

 Joseph Jackson Lister, was a man of rare ability, who 

 devoted the intervals of business to scientific pursuits. 

 He was a Fellow of the Royal .Society, and is best known 

 for his work on the improvement of the microscope, 

 which is embodied in a paper in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions for 1S31, "On some Properties in Achromatic 

 Object-glasses applicable to the Microscope." Other 

 papers of his appeared in the Philosophical Transactions^ 

 one of which was written in conjunction with the well- 

 known Dr. Hodgkin, who belonged, like him, to the 

 Society of Friends. They were the first to describe the 

 tendency of the red corpuscles of the blood to arrange 

 themselves in rouleaux. 



Sir Joseph Lister was thus early imbued with scientific 

 tastes, and learned by example, if he did not inherit by 

 descent, the habit of accurate observation and relentless 

 logic ; in short, that capacity for taking pains which has 

 been in a special manner the characteristic feature of 

 his genius. He was educated at a private Quaker 

 school at Tottenham, which numbered amongst its pupils 

 at about the same time the late Mr. William Edward 

 Forster and Dr. Wilson Fox ; and afterwards he became 

 a student at University College, London, from which he 

 graduated B.A. at the University of London in 1S47. 

 He then entered upon his medical studies at University 

 College, and here he came under the influence of 

 Sharpey, which possibly had something to do with 

 turning his attention, in the first place, to the study of 

 physiology. His first publications appeared in the year 

 1853, whilst he was still a student, "On the Muscular 

 Tissue of the Skin " and, " On the Contractile Tissue of the 

 Iris." He began his surgical studies just at the close of the 

 career of Liston, one of the last of the brilliant and rapid 

 operators of the last generation ; and he was one of the 

 first house surgeons to Mr.— now Sir John — Erichsen. 

 After a very distinguished career at the hospital and the 

 University, where he graduated M.B. in 1852, he went to 

 Edinburgh, to see the surgical practice there. Here he 

 was closely associated with, and soon became deeply 

 attached to the late Prof. Syme, whose daughter he subse- 

 quently inarried. .At first he was Mr. Syme's house surgeon, 

 but before long he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to 

 the Royal Infirmary, and Extra-Academical Lecturer on 



