Six papers / by Lord Lister ; with a short biography and explanatory notes by Sir Rickman J. Godlee.

  • Joseph Lister
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Six papers / by Lord Lister ; with a short biography and explanatory notes by Sir Rickman J. Godlee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the catgut ligature had been established. The whole procedure of tying arteries in wounds and ligaturing them in their continuity had thus been changed, long silk or thread ligatures which had to come away by sloughing of the vessel being no longer used. The necessity of working in an antiseptic atmosphere produced by a spray had become an accepted article of faith—unfortunately, shall we say ?—for it proved a stumbling-block to friends and a wreapon in the hand of the enemy, till it was finally expunged from the canon in 1887. The reason for the introduction of the spray is obvious -—Lister’s belief in the vast number of decomposition- producing vibrios in the air. Its abandonment was due to the gradually accumulated evidence, first, that they are by no means so plentiful; and secondly, that the natural defences of the body, if the tissues be not irri¬ tated, are much stronger than had been at first supposed. To determine the nature and the amount of the defence which the living tissues can put up against the attacks of micro-organisms became a problem of fundamental importance. Lister’s studies in bacteriology carried out at this time played an important part in its solution. There was no time of his life when the intervals be¬ tween the calls of practice—even “ the raspings and parings of hours ”—were not devoted to experimental research. We. have seen how he worked at histology, the clotting’ of the blood, and inflammation, in the early Edinburgh days. During the first five years at Glasgow he was absorbed with observations on suppuration, and especially suppuration of blood-dot; but they were abruptly broken off when he heard of Pasteur’s experi¬ ments on germs. Some of these he felt bound to repeat, and much time had also to be given to seeking for better antiseptic dressings and a perfect catgut ligature, which involved many tedious excursions into the mazes of technical chemistry.
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