AN ADVERSARY OF PAIN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3383, 18 July 1927, Page 7

AN ADVERSARY OF PAIN.

A minister of religion, speaking with, in the last few days at a public commemoration service m Glasgow Cathedral, hailed Joseph Lister as the greatest saviour of mankind “since the advent of Jesus Christ Himself.” Yet tiie catalogue of the library of the House of Commons contains not a single mention of Joseph Lister, and for that august assembly his name would indeed seem to have been “writ in water.”

At some point between these two extremes of reverence and neglect resides the real place of the great Englishman whom all the world will remember to-day (he was born April 5, 1827) with affection and gratitude. For the medical profession the centenary celebration has a special significance, in which deep pride is tinged with the remorseful memory that Lister had t's wait for many weary years for recognition by his colleagues, recognition which ultimately came in such overwhelming and triumphant measure. Lister's appreciation of the part played by micro-organisms in the causation of sepsis (septic infection of wounds) and the means of its prevention, were most fully unfolded in his introductory lecture on November 8, 1869, when succeeding Syme in the Chair of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, He developed his conviction in the germ theory of putrefaction, originating with Pasteur, could be applied to surgery upon which Pasteur had more especially worked. Lister, throughout his life, generously acknowledged Pasteur as his master, and was always modest about his own share in the revolution which his work produced in surgery. The antiseptic system of the treatment of wounds which he advocated and practised and the principles to be deduced from its success made at first little progress, and it is a reproach to London that London surgeons were especially obtuse to its reception. When, in the early ’nineties, 1. joined as a student, the famous medical school at which I received my training, it was the custom for the staffsurgeons to operate in long black serge overalls, put on to protect their clothing. These surgeons were actually proud of the antiquity of their operating garments. There were certain notable exceptions of surgeons in London, who early saw the value of Lister’s discovery and practised his methods; but the majority of London surgeons remained obdurately sceptical, and they were able to the end to keep Lister out of the Presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons, a position which he never held. It is to be emphasised that the enor.mous service which Lister rendered to surgery is to bo found as much in the alteration of the whole procedure of operation as in the discovery of the methods of preventing sepsis. Savory, a bitter opponent, ridiculed this most valuable aspect of his work with a gibing jingle of words when he referred to “the ritualism of Listerism.” The care of the patient before and after operation, the deliberate and methodical procedure adopted during operation, all contrasted with the slapdash methods previously practised by surgeons as a legacy of the time when, in the absence of anaesthesia, speed was of primary importance. So Lister's influence remains a permanent possession. His system of antisepsis (the prevention of putrefaction oy chemical agents) has been practically replaced by the modern methods of asepsis, which is achieved by heat—sterilisation of instruments and dressings thus avoiding the noxious effect* of chemical agents. But the great lesson oi tbe careful conduct of an operation, which his enemies had decided as partaking of “ritual,” remains for ever.

Before his epoch surgical operations were attended by a mortality so devastating that they were practised only as a last resort. In the Branco-Austriau vVar of 18(58, the year before Lister’s lecture in Edinburgh, the mortality alter amputations had been as high as oil per cent. In the Jtusso-Turkish war 18? /, a very partial adoption of Lister’s methods was accompanied] by a reduction of this mortality to something like 18 per cent. ' Lister was a great operating surgeon as well as an incomparable scientific investigator and teacher, a triple comonmtion excessively rare. His description of his operation for uumilical nernia may be cited as an example of nis wonderful dexterity; he was the first to wire 'successfully a fractured patella (kneecap); he was the first to open and 1 drain successfully a spinal abscess, 01

His inspiration was not confined to surgery. Every woman who since his time has borne a child owes him gratitude, for 'he showed the way to the practical elimination of puerperal fever, that scourge of womankind. In his personal character he was a kind and deeply sympathetic man. It is typical of him that at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War h© published a careful paper containing suggestions for ‘ ‘The Treatment of Wounded' Soldiers during the Present War.” Unhappily, no notice was taken of this communication by the surgeons concerned.

It is pleasant to remember that before he died all the world honored him, even our own country, ,so remiss in recognising science. He was made a peer —the first medical peer. He was elected, an honor which perhaps pleased him more, to the Presidency of the Royal Society. When he passed away, in the fulness of his years, even his modest soul must have known that he had completely transformed the noble art to which he had devoted his life, and that if he had not lifted from the shoulders of mankind the primal curse of death, he had in innumerable instances greatly delayed the incidence of its fell stroge.