Lister, 1827-1912 : a house surgeon's memories / [St. Clair Thomson].

  • Thomson, St. Clair, 1859-1943.
Date:
[1937]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lister, 1827-1912 : a house surgeon's memories / [St. Clair Thomson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    absent from the wards of the Royal Infirmary—or from those of any other large hospital in the world. At times these “hospital diseases” became so epidemic that whole wards had to be closed. As there was no certainty of knowledge as to the causes of these disasters, so there was no sure means of avoiding them. There was no satisfactory explanation why some wounds would close by “first intention” in a few days, while others required months of suppuration to obtain “healing by second intention,” if the patient was not meantime worn out with hectic fever and amyloid disease, or carried off by septicaemia or pyaemia. The mortality from wounds after all surgical operations was recorded in Glasgow as “enormous.” Lister’s own statistics in his early days there showed a mortality of 45 per cent. As these “wound diseases” were attributed to the oxygen in the air, and as it was impossible to exclude this, these terrible disasters were regarded as an “Act of God” and as inevitable as any other catastrophe. It was during his Glasgow period that it might be said that antiseptic surgery was “born.”2 (Fig. 6.) When the Glasgow Royal Infirmary was being rebuilt in 1924 an appeal was made from many quarters, including the British Association and the Academie de Medecine, to preserve the two wards which had been the cradle of antiseptic surgery. It is a lasting disgrace to this country to remember that this appeal was disregarded. However, we owe it to the generous founder of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum that an exact replica of these wards, as they existed in Lister’s day, has been made in miniature and can be studied in the Museum in the Euston Road. Edinburgh : Second Period. In 1869, at the age of 42, Lister returned to Edinburgh as Professor of Surgery in the University, and there he passed the eight years of his life which he afterwards described as the happiest, as they certainly were the fullest and most flowing. The Coming to London. In 1877, exactly sixty years ago, Lister was invited to leave Edinburgh for London to take the place vacated at King’s College Hospital by the death of another surgeon of the Edinburgh School. Sir William Fergusson was a brilliant operator and has been described as having the eye of an eagle, the heart of a lion and the hand of a lady. He used to peram¬ bulate the ward followed by a nurse carrying a towel and basin, into which he dipped his fingers after examining each case. Later on, it was jocularly remarked that the difference between the surgeon of the old school and one of the modem days was that the former washed his hands after examining a patient, while the latter did so before examining one ! But Fergusson was a poor teacher and was unable to attract a large number of students to King’s. The school in those days was described as