The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-19
SAVED 25o,0o0 LIVES.
Surgeon Has Snatched an Army From
 the Grave.

From Tit Bits.
 In an age when honors are lavished on men for the skill with which they compass the death of thousands of their fellows, one cannot pay too much homage to those whose mission 1t is to save, and not to destroy, life; and happily there still re- mains among us the king of them all a man on whose monument may some day be inscribed this remarkable legend He saved a quarter of million lives'
 To no other man who has ever lived can such a tribute be paid; but to assert that Lord Lister, the Grand Old Man" of surgery, has snatched 250.000 men from the grave is probably to understate the truth. When Joseph Lister first made his ac- qualntance with hospital, about sixty years ago. an operation of any importance meant almost certain death, and even quite simple operations were full of risk. The wounds made by the surgeons knife refused to heal, putrefaction was followed by suppuration, the patients became de- lerious, and in a sartling majority of cases died
 It was Lord Lister who discovered the deadly secret of all this mortality. He found that the putrefaction of the wound was due to the presence of germs which were introduced from outside; and in car bolic acid he discovered the means to kill these germs, thus by this simple discov- cry revolutionizing surgery and saving countless lives. An early result of this antlseptic treatment was that "gangrene, which had infected so per cent of the wounds, disappeared entirely" and today operations which would have meant cer- tain death half century ago are per formed daily without the least risk of fatal consequences.
 Such in briefest outline is the change Lord Lister has wrought in surgery; and one has only to read of the horrors of the hospitals in pre-Listerian days with their delirous and dying patients. and their compound odor of boiled mutton and sour poultices,' and then to pay visit to hospital of today to realize how revolutionary Is the change wrought by this one man.
 It is sixty years almost to a day since young Lister began to study surgery and medicine at University College. London. He was the son of very clever man. Fellow of the Royal Society. and the in- ventor, practically, of the modern micro scope and. as might be expected from the son of such a father. he quickly dis tinguished himself among his fellowstu- dents, graduating brilliantly and taking the coveted F. R. c. s. before he was 25. Then followed a period of splendid train ing at Edinburg under the great surgeon, MT. Syme whose daughter he married, and in 1860, at the early age of s. he was made Regius Professor of Surgery at Glasgow.
 It was here that he became so deeply impressed by the terrible mortality due to operations. and he set to work to dis cover the cause, with the results which we have described. There are still living students who saw him first experiment in antiseptic surgery by making paste of carbollc acid over the wound, and it was soon admitted that Listers wards were the healthiest in the world. But. luke many another prophet. he found least ap- preciation among his own countrymen. Germany, France and other continental countries adopted his methods with |avidity, and his fame was European before Great Britain became a tardy convert to his teaching
 However, unlike so many world -benefac- tors, he has lived to see the universal triumph of his discovery, and to reap honors such as fall to few men in a cen tury.
 Long years ago the University of Buda-