VI 



Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



organisms might be already present in wounds before they came under his 

 care, e.g. in wounds inflicted accidentally, such as compound fractures ; in 

 this case the problem was to kill them in the wound after they had entered, 

 or before they had established themselves there. On the other hand, the 

 wound might be inflicted by the surgeon through unbroken skin, and the 

 problem then was to prevent them from entering in a living condition. In 

 both cases there was the further problem of preventing their entrance during 

 the subsequent progress of the case. His first attempts were made with 

 compound fractures, in which the problem was to destroy the bacteria which 

 had already entered and to prevent others getting in afterwards. 



In looking for some agent which would destroy the bacteria and thus 

 prevent putrefaction his attention was directed to some striking results 

 which were being obtained in Carlisle about that time in the treatment of 

 sewage. It was stated that as the result of treating sewage with large 

 quantities of German creosote the material was effectually deodorised and 

 further putrefactive changes ceased in it. Lister accordingly procured 

 a specimen of this German creosote, which contained as its essential element 

 carbolic acid, and he waited patiently till he got a suitable case of a 

 compound fracture in which to test his views, and some months elapsed 

 before such a case presented itself. In the meantime he was occupying 

 himself with the examination of wounds and with the subject of spontaneous 

 generation and other cognate matters. Finally, a case of compound fracture 

 was admitted to his wards and in accordance with his instructions he was 

 sent for at once. He took some of this liquefied German creosote, and 

 introduced it into all the recesses of the wound ; he also mixed it with the 

 blood in the wound. The wound was then covered with a small piece of lint 

 soaked in the German creosote, and outside that plain lint and towels were 

 placed to soak up the discharge. The result surpassed his expectations ; the 

 patient remained well instead of developing temperature and high fever 

 within a few hours and having a long illness, the wound did not swell or 

 become inflamed, there was no pain and no suppuration. The mixture of 

 blood clot and carbolic acid remained in the wound and a crust formed on the 

 surface. After a time Lister began to try to detach this crust, and found 

 that beneath the superficial layer epithelium had spread over the deeper 

 portion of the clot and the greater part of the wound was covered with a 

 layer of epithelium. The antiseptic which he had employed had prevented 

 the occurrence of putrefaction, and the blood and the tissues in the wound 

 had behaved exactly as if they had been covered with skin, in fact, exactly 

 like a subcutaneous wound. No more attractive scientific paper was ever 

 written than his first publication in the ' Lancet ' in 1867 on this new method 

 of treating wounds, and one is struck with the acuteness of his observations 

 and with the rapid and sound deductions which Lister drew from everything 

 that he saw. 



As the carbolic acid evaporated from this mixture with blood and might 

 thus leave a putrescible substance, his next step was to paint the surface of 



