Joseph Lister

Abstract

Joseph Lister was born at Upton, Essex on April 5, 1827, the son of a wealthy wine merchant who became an eminent optical scientist. He received his M.B. and F.R.C.S. at the University College, London, in 1852 and went from there to Edinburgh to become the house surgeon to James Syme. He subsequently married Agnes Syme, the eldest daughter of his chief. He became a lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and became well known mostly through his writings on coagulation and microscopic observations. In 1859 he accepted the Professorship of Surgery at the University of Glasgow.

In spite of the advent of anesthesia, elective surgery was frequently complicated by erysipelas, septicemia, pyemia, and hospital gangrene. In 1865 Lister became aware of the work of Pasteur on fermentation and putrefaction. He decided to use carbolic acid (phenol) for wound dressings to prevent infections and to sterilize the operative field. His results are here reproduced in this Classic presentation. It is difficult to conceive what abdominal surgery was like prior to Lister. Few would be so bold as to voluntarily perform a laparotomy and no one would dare to incise or to resect an intestine.

Lister's work was severely criticized initially but ultimately he received the highest accolades throughout the world for his achievements. In 1869 he succeeded Syme as Professor at Edinburgh and subsequently became Professor of Surgery at King's College, London. He became President of the Royal Society, a baronet, and was the first physician to sit in the House of Lords.

Among his other notable contributions to surgery was the use of carbolized catgut sutures, and the introduction of the aortic turniquet, the wire needle, the ear hook, the sinus forceps, the urethral bougie, and the prostatic stone forceps.

Joseph Lister died on February 10, 1912 at the age of eighty-four. His remains were interred in Westminster Abbey.