Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1906-02-28
GREAT LIFE SAVER.
LORD LISTER, THE GRAND OLD
MANI OF SURGERY.
ne Has Saved q Quarter Of q Million
Lives by His Famous Discov-
cry Of Germ De-
stroyer.


In an age when honors are lavishet
for the skill with which men compass
the death of thousands of their fellow,
one cannot pay too much homage L
those whose mission it is to save anC
not to destroy life, and happily, say
the Chicago Chronicle, there still 70
mains among us the king of them all
a man on whose monument may som'
day be inscribed this remarkabl,
legend: He saved quarter Of mil
lion lives"
To no other man who has ever lived
can such tribute be paid; but u
assert that Lord Lister, the grand ole
man" of surgery, has snatched 25O,O0C
men from the grave is probably Il
understate the truth When JOSEPH
Lister first made his acquaintance will
q hospital about so years ago, an op'
Grafton of any Importance meant al
most certain death, and even quite
simple operations were full OF risk
The wounds made by the surgeons
knife refused to heal, putrefaction wai
followed by suppuration, the patients
became delirious and in q startling ma
jority of cases died.
1t was Lord Lister who discovered
the deadly secret Of all this mortal
ity. He found that the putrefaction
of the wound was due to the presence
Of germs which were introduced from
outside, and in carbolic acid he dis
covered the means to kill these germs
thus by this simple discovery revo-
lutionizing surgery and saving count
less lives. An early result OF this
antiseptic treatment was that gan
creme which had infected 80 per cent
Of the wounds disappeared entirely"
and to-day operations which would
have meant certain death half a cen
fury ago are performed daily without
the least risk of fatal consequences.
Such in briefest outlook is the
change Lord Lister has wrought In
surgery, and one has only to read Of
the horrors of the hospitals in pre-
Historian days, with their delirious
and dying patients, and their COM
pound Odor of boiled mutton and sour
poultices" and then to pay visit to
q hospital of to-day to realize how
revolutionary is the change wrought
by this one man.
1t is so years almost to day since
young Lister began to study surgery
and medicine at University college,
London. He was the son of very
clever man, a fellow of the Royal So
ciety. and the inventor, practically, of
the modern microscope, and, as mignt
be expected from the son Of such q
father, he quickly distinguished him
self among his fellow students, gradu-
ating brilliantly and taking the COW
eted F. r. G. S. before he was rs.
Then followed a period of splendid
training under the great surgeon, Mr..
Syme, whose daughter he married, and
in 1860, at the early age of 80, he was
made regius professor of surgery 1T
Glasgow.
1t was here that he became so deep
ly impressed by the terrible mortality
due to operations and he set to
work to discover the cause, with the
results which we have described.
There are still living students who
saw him first experiment in antisep-
tic surgery by making a paste of car
bolic acid over the wound, and 1t was
soon admitted that Lister wards"
were the healthiest in the world. But,
like many another prophet, he found
least appreciation among his own
Germany, France and
other continental countries adopted his
methods with avidity, and his fame
was European before Great Britain be-
came a tardy convert to his teaching,
However, unlike so many world bene-
factors, he has lived to see the uni
versal triumph of his discovery and TO
reap honors such as fall to few men
in a century.
And never, perhaps, did so great q
man bear his honors so modestly. At
IS he remains, to quote great sur
geon, as simple and lovable as a
child His old pupils adore him;
his numberless friends respect and
love him; the world counts him one
Of its greatest benefactors, For the
rest he is an ardent lover of nature.
skilled in botany and woodcraft, and
be declares that the sweetest music on
Darth is the song Of birds.