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Joseph Lister is known as the 'father of modern surgery'

Find out how his ideas about cleanliness and sterilisation made medical operations safer.

Who was he?

• Lister was born in England on 5 April 1827.
• His father taught him how to use a microscope
• By the age of 16 he wanted to be a surgeon.
• Lister was shocked that half of patients died after surgery.
• He learned about invisible germs from French chemist Louis Pasteur's work on rotten food
• Lister began experimenting with chemicals to clean patients' wounds.
• Cleaning wounds and surgical instruments with antiseptic made the survival rate higher.
• Lister published his discovery and began persuading others to use the same methods.
• Joseph Lister died in England on 10 February 1912 aged 87.

Surgery before Lister

• Surgery was very dangerous and the high death rate made many people suggest it should be stopped.

• Patients often died from 'ward fever' caused by infections after surgery.

• People thought ward fever was caused by bad air escaping wounds

• Surgeons wore their bloody and unwashed medical clothes as a badge of honour to show their experience.

• Medical instruments were rarely cleaned and staff never washed their hands.

Lister's experiments

• Lister thought germs caused infection
• He soaked bandages in carbolic acid to keep wounds clean. It was normally used for cleaning sewers!
• Patients who would otherwise need limbs amputated due to infections, began to heal properly with Lister's new antiseptic treatment
• Lister decided that hands, clothes, surgical tools, and wounds should also be washed with this chemical.
• This led the way for other types of surgery due to less risk of infection.
• Lister even invented a carbolic acid spray machine to clear surgical theatres but breathing in acid was dangerous!

Definitions

• Antiseptic prevents the growth of disease-causing bacteria (micro organisms).
• Carbolic Acid was first extracted from coal tar and used to treat wood because it stopped rot. Lister only ever used a 5% concentration with 95% water because it is very strong and can burn on contact with skin.
• Amputating an arm or leg was the main way of preventing infections spreading before Lister and this was often performed with no painkillers, and did not have a high survival rate.