Lord Lister, the discoverer of antiseptic surgery / by C.J.S. Thompson.

  • Thompson, C. J. S. (Charles John Samuel), 1862-1943.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lord Lister, the discoverer of antiseptic surgery / by C.J.S. Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Renaissance of Surgery—Hospital Terrors— The Beginning of a New Era. AT the time when Lister went to Glasgow, the great obstacle to progress in surgery was sepsis or the inflammation caused as we now know by micro¬ organisms, which regularly infected wounds of every description. A surgeon had to recognise that there was no security against the simplest and most successful operations being followed by dangerous and even fatal results. In Glasgow, at the period when Lister began his labours, hospital gangrene and other diseases were scarcely ever absent from the wards and some had often to be closed on account of the frightful mortality which constantly occurred. This was not only the case at home but also abroad, for in Nuremberg the authorities actually contemplated demolishing a great hospital for the same reason. The male ward in the old Glasgow Infirmary, where Lister’s first cases were treated, was in a detached stone building on the ground floor of which was a long rectangular room lighted by six windows on either side. In the centre was a brick flue with two open fireplaces, placed back to back, for heating purposes, and on each side of the ward were twelve iron cots or beds of the ordinary hospital type. After a heated controversy among the local authorities this historic building was demolished in 1924. It was in this ward that stood under the shadows of the great new infirmary which has now arisen, that Lister pondered over many things, but more especially the outstanding