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Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister was an English surgeon, medical scientist, experimental pathologist and pioneer of antiseptic surgery and preventive healthcare. Lister revolutionised the craft of surgery by the use of close anatomical observation, in the same manner that John Hunter revolutionised the science of surgery.
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politics · English scientist, surgeon and antiseptic pioneer (1827–1912) · surgeon · university teacher · politician · botanical collector · also Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, Lord Lister, Joseph, Lord Lister, Lord Joseph Lister, Joseph First Baron Lister
Born 5 April 1827 · Died 10 February 1912 · Q155768
78 published statements · 0 followers
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For my own part, I may say that, of all the gentlemen from Great Britain and both continents who have recently visited Glasgow, not one has ever expressed the slightest doubt that the system in question was entirely new; the novelty, I may remark, being, not the surgical use of carbolic acid (which I never claimed), but the methods of its employment with the view of protecting the reparatory processes from disturbance by external agency.
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“I found a coil of intestine about eight inches across, comprehending, perhaps, about a yard of the small intestines, protruding from the lower part of the abdomen... no doubt all was done by one instrument and one stroke.”
“For my own part, I may say that, of all the gentlemen from Great Britain and both continents who have recently visited Glasgow, not one has ever expressed the slightest doubt that the system in question was entirely new; the novelty, I may remark, being, not the surgical use of carbolic acid (which I never claimed), but the methods of its employment with the view of protecting the reparatory processes from disturbance by external agency.”
“the thorough working of the antiseptic system with a view to its diffusion in the Metropolis”
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“I tried the application of carbolic acid to the wound, to prevent decomposition of the blood and to prevent the fearful mischief of suppuration. It is now eight days since the accident and patient has been going exactly as though the fracture were a simple one.”
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“this observation is of fundamental importance, since it proves that the inhibitory influence does not operate directly upon the muscular tissue, but upon the nervous apparatus by which its contractions are, under ordinary circumstances, elicited”
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“The extreme delicacy of the cell wall makes it very difficult to trace it among the surrounding tissue”
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Time: Medicine: Joseph Lister
insider.si.edu: The butchering art : Joseph Lister's quest to transform the grisly world of Victorian medicine / Lindsey Fitzharris
New Scientist: Joseph Lister
Worboys revisited Lister's writing, by examing it from three different performance perspectives- antiseptic, surgery and professional
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Described some of his essays as "turgid"
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Medical historian Michael Worboys stated that his surgical contemporaries reported that "translating his words into action" was difficult
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“Joseph McCarthy: Reexaming the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator”
Failed to mention the operation, and instead started his account from the 1860s onwards
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Died 1912-02-10.
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“I left behind me in Glasgow a boy, thirteen years of age, who, between three and four weeks previously, met with a most severe injury to the left arm, which he got entangled in a machine at a fair.”
Awarded Honorary Doctorate from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1910).
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Lister left London to live in the coastal village of Walmer at Park House
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When he was seventy-eight years old, he wrote,
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Awarded Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog (1902).
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Won Copley Medal (1902).
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Career landmark: Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (1902).
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King Edward developed appendicitis just before his scheduled coronation
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Lister was awarded the College Gold Medal, their highest honour
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Career landmark: member of the House of Lords (1897–1912).
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Was elected president of the Royal Society succeeding Lord Kelvin
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Career landmark: President of the Royal Society (1895–1900).
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Won Albert Medal (1894).
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Four days into a spring holiday in Rapallo, Agnes Lister died from acute pneumonia
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Awarded Cameron Prize of the University of Edinburgh (1890).
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Lister presented the Bradshaw lecture with a lecture titled "On the Present Position of Antiseptic Treatment in Surgery"
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Was elected vice president of the college, but declined the nomination for office of president, as he wished to devote his remaining time to further research
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Awarded Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order (1885).
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Was awarded the Pour le Mérite, the highest Prussian order of merit
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When he treated President James Garfield who had been shot
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Won Royal Medal (1880).
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The British Medical Association recommended the synthetic gas ethidene dichloride for clinical trials
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Awarded Knight Grand Officer of the Order of the Dannebrog (1879).
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Won Cothenius Medal (1877).
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Lister was awarded the Cothenius Medal of the German Society of Naturalists
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Lucas-Championnière visited Lister a second time and then wrote the first French reference on antiseptics in the "Journal de Médecine et de chirurgie pratiques" (Journal of Practical Medicine and Surgery)
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The medical journal The Lancet warned the entire medical profession against his progressive ideas
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Awarded Makdougall Brisbane Prize (1872).
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Volkmann sent his assistant Max Schede to visit Lister at his clinic, to learn his new techniques
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However Lister updated the chapter to state that he felt apprehension about using chloroform on the "aged and infirm"
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Mathias Saxtorph from the University of Copenhagen visited Lister in Glasgow to adopt his methods
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And became the leading French pioneer of Listerism
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Industrial accidents often led to the patient being thrown to the ground, leading to dirt entering the wound and a risk of deep infection
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Amputation was the standard treatment for compound fractures
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Where he described the antiseptic power of carbolic acid
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Stating "[By] applying the knowledge for which we are indebted to Pasteur of the presence in the atmosphere of organic germs
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Won Croonian Medal and Lecture (1863).
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Where he had boiled a meat broth in a swan neck flask; the bend in the neck of the flask prevented falling particles from reaching the broth, while still allowing the free flow of air
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161 students signed a petition on parchment supporting his claim for election
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Was seminal in enabling Lister to understand the nature of sepsis, where the body's response to infections leads to injury of the tissue and organs
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Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society (1860).
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In "Saponinated coal tar" and after a long series of investigations had followed up with an 1863 book, De l'acide phénique, de son action sur les végétaux, les animaux, les ferments, les venins, les virus, les miasmes et
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University life in Glasgow was lived in the grimy quadrangles of the small college on Glasgow High Street, a mile east of the city centre next to Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) and the Cathedral and surrounded by the most
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Advocated for the use of silver wire sutures that had been invented by J
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In the same journal and read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 1 December 1856, concerned the histology and function of the minute structures of involuntary muscle fibres
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Lister published seven papers on physiological experiments he conducted on the origin and mechanism of inflammation
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In the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science
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Which described the discovery of the microbe responsible for fermentation in beer yeast
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And he continued to use it until the 1880s
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Before Lister's studies of surgery, many people believed that chemical damage from exposure to "bad air", or miasma, was responsible for infections in wounds
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Lister became first a dresser in January 1851 then a house surgeon to John Eric Erichsen in May 1851
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Again received "Certificates of Honours" and won two gold medals in anatomy and a silver medal each in surgery and medicine
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Just before Lister's seventeenth birthday, he moved to an apartment at 28 London Road that he shared with Edward Palmer, also a Quaker
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His father decided to send him to university
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And Johann Ferdinand Heyfelder in 1849, followed by British surgeon William Fergusson in 1851
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To become the first Professor of Physiology
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Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge discovered the germicide phenol, then known as carbolic acid, which he derived in an impure form from coal tar
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And later investigated further by Wilhelm von Wittich in 1854 and Emile Harless in 1846
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Born 1827-04-05.
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The family moved to Upton House, a long low Queen Anne style mansion that came with 69 acres of land
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Charles Scudamore had proposed carbonic acid as the solution
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Lister's family moved to Stoke Newington
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Along with many other surgeons since, due to the influence of John Hunter
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