LORD LISTER.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 8 April 1927, Page 10

LORD LISTER.

AN INTERESTING BIOGRAPHY

Medical science may be at a standstill at present, as lias been comp'ained in Britain during the Jast day or two,’ but it has made plenty of progress since April 5, 1827. On that hay there was born to a wine merchant living, at Upton, in Essex, a son, whose Subsequent medical discoveries are estimated to have saved more lives during the nineteenth century than were sacrificed in that century’s wars. The 3-oung man who put in his appearance ;i hundred years ago to-day was Joseph Lister, who as Lord Lister, died fifteen years ago, full of years and honours. Lord Lister’s great discovery was that dirt and wounds made bad fellows. Nobody had thought of this bright idea before, for our ancestors were not fussy about such matters. In the old days, before they had anaesthetics, operations were only performed on hale and hearty persons, who didn’t mind 6eeing themselves sliced up. When choloform came into use, about 1850, operating came on with a run, but the numerous patients, for some extraordinary reason, aIL began developing “surgical fever.” Some statistics collected by an investigator about this time showed that of 679 persons who underwent amputation of the leg or the thigh, no less than 205 died from this same subsequent mysterious surgical fever. ’ The doctors,' much puzzled by the pestilential results following on their operations, decided that there must be some infection in the old hospitals. New hospitals were built, but they speedily became as bad as the old. Things got sd bad that there was even some talk of throwing hospitals overboard, for somehow or other patients did worse in hospital, after an operation than elsewhere. It was at this flme that young Dr Lister, much distressed by wliat he saw in the hospitals j at Edinburgh began to think a lot about • Rasteur’s discovery that fermentation j and putrefaction were caused by the

introduction of living organisms. He therefore started out to see whether wounds would heal better if the germs were chased away. To this end he eventually rigged up an appartus by wbien the patient, the doctors, and the spectators during an operation were enveloped in a carbolic acid spray. The rese ts were remarkable, and the persons operated on recovered without any “surgical fever.” Further experiments .showed that the carbolic spray . was hot essential, and that the necessary conditions for healing could be secured by sterilising the surgical instruments and dressings, by washing the part to be operated on with what seemed to the uninitiated to be ridiculously exaggerated care, and by the surgeons and nurses treating their hands similarly. By the time Lord Lister reached the end of his tether it was estimated that instead of 205 persons out of 679 dying after having their legs amputated tho outside number was more likely to be five. Lord Lister thus made it possible for surgical operations to be ns profitable to the patient as to the doctor).