the question.
In his spare time Lister was also a scientist. There were few full-time
scientists as such, apart from those in the chemical industry.
For a gentleman, studying science wasn't really a vocation, more of
a hobby. Science ran in the family. Lister's father, a wine merchant,
was a respected microscopist and had devised significant refinements
to microscopic technique. The younger Lister started his own
experiments on frogs. He used a microscope to observe what
happened when wounds became inflamed. He found that gangrene
was a process of rotting – the flesh was decomposing. What he could
not understand was why a simple fracture – a bone broken beneath
the skin – healed, whereas a compound fracture – where the bone
penetrated the skin and was exposed to the air – became infected.
One of the greatest tragedies in the history of medicine is how
long it took the medical profession to realize that disease and infection
were caused by micro-organisms. The invention of the microscope
in the seventeenth century had revealed these 'germs' for the
first time, but the work was never pursued and the connections
never made between these 'microscopic' creatures and disease.
For all his achievements, not even Semmelweis had worked
it out. He died believing that disease was spread by dead matter
itself, rather than anything on the dead matter. Furthermore, few
surgeons made the connection between dirty conditions and rates
of infection. Florence Nightingale had shown how sanitary hospital
conditions reduced death rates significantly, and even old-school
surgeon Robert Liston had probably lost fewer patients than his
rivals thanks to his attention to cleanliness. The fact that Liston operated
so quickly also probably kept the death rate down. With anaesthetics,
most operations were often taking longer, so wounds were
exposed for a greater amount of time, increasing the opportunity
for infection.
Doubtless more surgical patients survived in Victorian Britain
than elsewhere, thanks to the obsession with order and cleanli-
ness. But while most surgeons might be smartly turned out when
they arrived at the hospital, when they came to operate they would
don their old frock coat, encrusted with blood and pus – the result
of years of messy surgery – and would pick up the same instruments
they had used on the previous patient, wiped down to stop
them rusting.
A professor of chemistry at the university, Thomas Anderson,
told Lister about some experiments that had been conducted in
France by Louis Pasteur. Lister found Pasteur's work simple but
compelling. In one of his experiments, Pasteur sterilized a flask of
broth by boiling it. He plugged the top of the glass vessel with cotton
wool to allow the passage of air but nothing else. He left the flask for
a few days and found the broth remained sterile. When the cotton
wool was removed, the broth became putrid. Pasteur had proved
that it was something in the air, not the air itself, that caused a
substance to rot. The something, he surmised, was germs – micro-organisms
in the air.
Pasteur's most famous refinement of this experiment was
conducted using a swan-necked flask – a specially made glass
container with a long, curved glass stem protruding from the top.
Air could pass freely through the stem, but any dust or microscopic
organisms in the air would become trapped. He filled the flask with
broth and?it remained sterile. *
* Pasteur's research was published in a series of papers between 1857 and 1860. Semmelweis was still working on his book during this period, but there is no evidence that he knew of Pasteur's work or that he ever made the connection between hospital infection and micro-organisms. Given that Semmelweis's achievements were published in only a very limited way, it is assumed by historians that Pasteur never came across his research.
Reading through Pasteur's published research was heavy going,
but Lister's efforts were rewarded. He started to piece
In his spare time Lister was also a scientist. There were few full-time
scientists as such, apart from those in the chemical industry.
For a gentleman, studying science wasn't really a vocation, more of
a hobby. Science ran in the family. Lister's father, a wine merchant,
was a respected microscopist and had devised significant refinements
to microscopic technique. The younger Lister started his own
experiments on frogs. He used a microscope to observe what
happened when wounds became inflamed. He found that gangrene
was a process of rotting – the flesh was decomposing. What he could
not understand was why a simple fracture – a bone broken beneath
the skin – healed, whereas a compound fracture – where the bone
penetrated the skin and was exposed to the air – became infected.
One of the greatest tragedies in the history of medicine is how
long it took the medical profession to realize that disease and infection
were caused by micro-organisms. The invention of the microscope
in the seventeenth century had revealed these 'germs' for the
first time, but the work was never pursued and the connections
never made between these 'microscopic' creatures and disease.
For all his achievements, not even Semmelweis had worked
it out. He died believing that disease was spread by dead matter
itself, rather than anything on the dead matter. Furthermore, few
surgeons made the connection between dirty conditions and rates
of infection. Florence Nightingale had shown how sanitary hospital
conditions reduced death rates significantly, and even old-school
surgeon Robert Liston had probably lost fewer patients than his
rivals thanks to his attention to cleanliness. The fact that Liston operated
so quickly also probably kept the death rate down. With anaesthetics,
most operations were often taking longer, so wounds were
exposed for a greater amount of time, increasing the opportunity
for infection.
Doubtless more surgical patients survived in Victorian Britain
than elsewhere, thanks to the obsession with order and cleanli-
ness. But while most surgeons might be smartly turned out when
they arrived at the hospital, when they came to operate they would
don their old frock coat, encrusted with blood and pus – the result
of years of messy surgery – and would pick up the same instruments
they had used on the previous patient, wiped down to stop
them rusting.
A professor of chemistry at the university, Thomas Anderson,
told Lister about some experiments that had been conducted in
France by Louis Pasteur. Lister found Pasteur's work simple but
compelling. In one of his experiments, Pasteur sterilized a flask of
broth by boiling it. He plugged the top of the glass vessel with cotton
wool to allow the passage of air but nothing else. He left the flask for
a few days and found the broth remained sterile. When the cotton
wool was removed, the broth became putrid. Pasteur had proved
that it was something in the air, not the air itself, that caused a
substance to rot. The something, he surmised, was germs – micro-organisms
in the air.
Pasteur's most famous refinement of this experiment was
conducted using a swan-necked flask – a specially made glass
container with a long, curved glass stem protruding from the top.
Air could pass freely through the stem, but any dust or microscopic
organisms in the air would become trapped. He filled the flask with
broth and?it remained sterile. *
* Pasteur's research was published in a series of papers between 1857 and 1860. Semmelweis was still working on his book during this period, but there is no evidence that he knew of Pasteur's work or that he ever made the connection between hospital infection and micro-organisms. Given that Semmelweis's achievements were published in only a very limited way, it is assumed by historians that Pasteur never came across his research.
Reading through Pasteur's published research was heavy going,
but Lister's efforts were rewarded. He started to piece
Similar Books
