Lectures

7th November 2018: Lister's Antiseptic Surgery: A Medical Revolution

On 7th November 2018 Dr Michael Heeley, a GP in Deal and Walmer for 30 years, gave an illuminating talk to a packed room of the Wye Historical Society on 'Lister’s Antiseptic Surgery: A Medical Revolution.' Lord Lister was the father of modern surgery. Before his time the medical profession was still using Greek theories such as those based on the four 'humors' – the balance of blood, phlegm and bile in the body; miasma – poisonous vapours in the air; and spontaneous generation – where micro-organisms developed from non-organic matter.

Amputation was a common treatment but had a high mortality rate due to the risk of infection. A frock coat was worn for surgery and not washed between patients. Silk threads were used in surgery and left in the wound which could also lead to infection. Dr Ignaz Semmelweis from Hungary first introduced the idea of hand washing in hospital but his ideas were not popular with the medical profession at the time.

In 1844 anaesthetic was invented by American William Morton. The first demonstration of general anaesthetic in the UK was at University College London (UCL) on 1st December 1846 and Lister was in the audience. Born in 1827 in West Ham, Essex into a Quaker family, Joseph Lister attended UCL in 1844-47 and then entered medical school qualifying as a doctor in 1852. He was assistant to surgeon James Syme in Edinburgh between 1853 and 1860 and in 1856 he married Syme's daughter Agnes.

Lister became professor of surgery in Glasgow in 1860 and in 1861 read Louis Pasteur’s newly published paper on germ theory. In 1865 he corresponded with Pasteur about milk bacteria and in the same year he began using lint dipped in carbolic acid derived from coal tar and washing his hands in a carbolic solution. In 1867 Lister published papers showing that out of thirteen amputations carried out using this method twelve were successful. He next experimented with artery ligatures, replacing the silk with catgut. This is made from sheep or horse intestines and was also used in musical instruments. Lister invented chromic catgut which was still used until the end of the 20th Century and pioneered the use of carbolic acid spray. Lister was the first surgeon in the UK to put a drain in an abscess; the patient was Queen Victoria. In 1877 he become professor at Kings College Hospital and moved to London. That year he was the first person to wire a fracture together and in 1879 he received a standing ovation at the International Congress of Medical Science. There was still much resistance to his ideas but by the mid-1880s antisepsis was fully accepted.

Lister retired as a professor in 1892 and as a surgeon in 1899. In 1908 he moved to Walmer, to a house on the seafront which now has a blue plaque. He died in 1912, aged 84. The funeral was held at Westminster Abbey, but he was buried next to his wife in Hampstead. There are statues of Lister in Portland Place, London and Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow. Two hospitals are named after him, as were the bacterial infection Listeria Monocytogenes and Listerine mouthwash.

Ellie Morris