Introductory lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh, November 8, 1869 / by Joseph Lister.

  • Lister, Joseph, Baron, 1827-1912.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh, November 8, 1869 / by Joseph Lister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    at once. The canula and trocar having been lying ex- posed to the air, dust will have been deposited upon them, and will be present in the angle between the trocar and the silver tube, and in that protected situa- tion will fail to be wiped off when the instrument is thrust through the tissues. Then when the trocar is withdrawn, some portions of this dust will naturally remain upon the margin of the canula, which is left projecting into the abscess, and nothing is more likely than that some particles may fail to be washed off by the stream of outflowing pus, but may be dislodged when the tube is taken out, and left behind in the cavity. The germ-theory tells us that these particles of dust will be pretty sure to contain the germs of putre- factive organisms, and if one such is left in the albumin- ous liquid, it will rapidly develop at the high tempera- ture of the body, and account for all the phenomena. But striking as is the parallel between putrefaction in this instance and the vinous fermentation, as regards the greatness of the effect produced, compared with the minuteness and the inertness, chemically speaking, of the cause, you will naturally desire further evidence of the similarity of the two processes. You can see with the microscope the torula of fermenting must or beer. Is there, you may ask, any organism to be detected in the putrefying pus 1 Yes, gentlemen, there is. If any drop of the putrid matter is examined with a good glass, it is found to be teeming with myriads of minute jointed bodies, called vibrios, which indubitably proclaim their vitality by the energy of their move- ments. It is not an affair of probability, but a fact,