Lister, Joseph

Lister, Joseph Baron Lister of Lyme Regis (1827-1912), doctor, b. Upton, Essex, England.

Lord Lister was the chief surgeon at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and later worked in Edinburgh and London.

In his time, any person who underwent an operation ran the risk of' 'hospital sickness', a fever generally followed by death.

Lister heard of Louis Pasteur's work in France and realized that germs in the operating theater must be the cause of 'hospital sickness'.

He searched for a substance to kill the germs and found carbolic acid. He sprayed the operating theater with carbolic acid and he used it also on the surgeon's hands and clothing, the instruments and the dressings put on wounds.

'Antiseptic' surgery, as this was called, made a startling reduction in the number of people dying after operations and also made it possible to carry out more serious operations.

There is a statue of Lord Lister in Portland Place, London.

See G. T. Wrench Lord Lister His Life and Work