June 18, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



885 



Stewart^" gives a vivid account of the 

 dreary days during which he and the other 

 assistants whom Lister had brought with 

 him from Edinburgh wandered in the 

 wards of other hospitals "heavy with the 

 odor of suppuration" while Lister's own 

 small wards were filled with empty beds. 

 Instead of the Edinburgh crowds of "500 

 eager listeners" their "hearts were chilled 

 by the listless air of the 12 or 20 students 

 who lounged into lecture at King's" — only 

 12 or 20 students ! 



But a month later the tide turned.^^ A 

 case of fractured patella was admitted and 

 in violation of all surgical precedent, for 

 in that septic era to open a knee-joint meant 

 too often the loss of limb or even of life, 

 Lister boldly opened the joint, but with 

 every antiseptic precaution, and wired the 

 two fragments together. This elicited the 

 remark from a distinguished London sur- 

 geon: 



Wien this poor fellow dies, some one ought to 

 proceed against that man for mal-praetise. 



But the man got well. Soon after this a 

 case with an enormous malignant tumor of 

 the thigh, which had been declined by other 

 surgeons, came to Lister. He amputated 

 the limb and, 



the members of the stafE and students visiting this 

 interesting patient were astonished to find him in 

 a day or two sitting up in bed and reading a 

 paper, being free from pain and free from fever. 



A little later Paget and Hewitt both 

 refused to operate on a lady of social im- 

 portance with a large tumor of the shoulder- 

 blade. Lister operated in the presence of 

 Paget and Hewitt and she recovered with- 

 out suppuration, fever or pain. 



Yet two years later still (1879) Savory, 

 Thomas Bryant, Tait and Spence, while 

 claiming to practise antiseptic surgery so 

 far as strict cleanliness was concerned, de- 



10 Wrench, p. 274 et seq. 



11 Wrench, p. 278 et seq. 



clined to subscribe to Lister's doctrines or 

 to practise his method. 



But the enthusiastic acclaim of the Inter- 

 national Medical Congress in Amsterdam 

 in that same year set the seal of approval of 

 the profession at large. This may be said 

 to be the date of the general acceptance of 

 Lister's theory and Lister's method. Lon- 

 don then capitulated. 



In 1902, twenty-three years later, London 

 made ample amends for its persistent early 

 skepticism by a most generous outburst. 

 The Royal Society, of which Lister had been 

 president and from which he had received 

 two medals, gave a banquet in honor of the 

 jubilee of his doctorate. It was a most dis-. 

 tinguished occasion and was made preemi- 

 nent by a happy sentiment by Mr. Bayard 

 the American Ambassador. Said he, ad^ 

 dressing Lister: 



My Lord, it is not a Profession, it is not a Na- 

 tion, it is Humanity itself which, with uncovered 

 head, salutes you. 



Better, far better, such a eulogium than, 

 the peerage which had been already be- 

 stowed upon him. 



Having now traced so imperfectly the 

 fortunes of the germ theory, let us see the 

 results of Lister's labors. The first results 

 are his own, especially in Glasgow. There 

 the horrible conditions he has so startlingly 

 portrayed^- should have made his wards a 

 charnal house. 



The mortality in the other accident ward 

 was so excessive that it had to be closed. 

 But in Lister's ward, separated from the 

 other only by a corridor twelve feet wide, 

 for the nine months "in which his anti- 

 septic system had been fairly in operation 

 . . . not a single case of pyemia, erysipelas 

 or hospital gangrene had occurred. ' ' 



The reason for his first attempt to apply 



12 Lancet, 1870, I., pp. 4, 40, and quoted in my 

 ' ' Animal Experimentation and Medical Progress, ' ' 

 pp. 216-18. 



