102 
OBITUARY. 
them to advantage. He became M.B. at the London University 
in 1852, and in the same year took the F.R.C.S. (Eng.). 
After holding office for a time as a resident assistant in Uni¬ 
versity College Hospital, Lister went on an autumn holiday to 
Scotland, taking, among other letters of introduction, one from 
Professor Sharpey to Professor Syme, then at the height of his 
reputation as a surgeon. He saw at Edinburgh so much that was 
important and instructive that he obtained permission from his 
father to extend his stay, and he remained, first as a supernu¬ 
merary dresser under Mr. Syme, and afterwards as his house 
surgeon. On resigning his post, in 1856, he married Mr. Syme’s 
daughter, and was soon afterwards appointed assistant surgeon 
to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In this position he began to 
teach, as a private lecturer on surgery recognized by the univer¬ 
sity, and continued to do so until his appointment to the chair of 
surgery in the University of Glasgow in i860. He had already 
contributed a series of important papers to the Royal Society— 
papers chiefly based upon microscopical research—and in i860 
he was elected a fellow. In 1863 he was appointed by the society 
as Croonian lecturer, and selected as his subject “ The Coagula¬ 
tion of the Blood.” About the same time he was a contributor 
of the articles on “ Anesthetics ” and on “ Amputation ” to 
“ Holmes’ System of Surgery,” and had written other papers of 
very considerable merit. 
In the early sixties Lister became acquainted with the work of 
Pasteur, whose two great hypotheses—that putrefaction is caused 
by the agency of living germs, and that these germs are not spon¬ 
taneously generated—Lister made his own and converted to un- 
thought-of uses, with what results are well known, not only to 
the whole medical profession, but . also to the whole civilized 
world. Focussing his giant intellect upon the one great object, 
how to protect wounds from germs of inflammation, he devised 
the carbolic spray and carbolic gauze, or the Listerian bandage, as 
it was then called. The effects upon surgical mortality were 
striking and immediate, no such curative results having been pre¬ 
viously obtained. In consequence, operations of much greater 
magnitude were undertaken with confidence by surgeons which 
formerly none would have dared to perform. The system soon 
spread, and was speedily taken up in Germany, as well as in this 
country. Another great advance in surgical art is also associated 
with Lister’s name—-the use of the absorbable catgut ligature, 
which he introduced as a substitute for the silken or flax thread 
