Lord Lister, 1827-1912 : an oration ... delivered in the University of Glasgow on Commemoration Day 23rd June, 1914 / by Sir Hector C. Cameron, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery.

  • Cameron, Hector Charles, 1878-1958.
Date:
1914
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lord Lister, 1827-1912 : an oration ... delivered in the University of Glasgow on Commemoration Day 23rd June, 1914 / by Sir Hector C. Cameron, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery. 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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    in Lister's mind at that time. He used frequently to say that it was a doubtful privilege to be an hospital surgeon, and out of this divine discontent with things as they were in the surgical world ultimately grew the great and bene- ficent reforms which he introduced into its methods and practice. It is related that, about this time, he was one day going round his wards and came to the bedside of a patient whose arm had been broken and very severely crushed, without, however, any wound of the skin having been produced. Turning to the students, he said, Gentle- men, it is a common observation, that when severe injuries are received without the skin being broken, the patients usually recover, and that without any severe illness. On the other hand, trouble, often of the gravest kind, is always apt to follow, even in trivial injuries, when a wound of the skin is present. How is this ? I cannot help thinking that the man who is able fully to explain this problem will be one who will gain for himself undying fame. It was this problem which he set himself to solve by endeavouring to devise some form of treatment which would place external and open wounds in as good a position in regard to the chances of putre- faction and consequent suppuration as those which were still separated from the external world by an envelope of unbroken skin, and this was the ideal which he always kept before him. The general belief then held was that the changes in the blood and other fluids of the wound were brought about, in some way, through the influence of the oxygen of the air. But just at this time a great French chemist, Louis Pasteur, published the results of a series of brilliant researches and experiments which seemed to establish entirely that the putrefaction of