The Virginia enterprise., 1906-02-23
GREAT LIFE SAVER.
LORD LISTER, THE ''dRAND OLD
MAN, OF SURGERY.
He Has Saved a Quarter of a Million
Lives by His Famous Discov-
cry Of Germ De-
stroyer.

In an age when honors are layished
Tor the skill with which men compass
the death Of thousands of their fellows
one cannot pay too much homage 10
those whose mission it is to save an0
not to destroy life, and happily, says
the Chicago Chronicle, there still re-
mains among us the king of them all
man on whose monument may some
day be inscribed this remarkable
legend: HE saved q quarter of a mil
lion Eyes.'
10 no other man who has ever lived
can such tribute be paid; but to
assert that Lord Lister, the grand old
man. of surgery, has snatched 25O,OOO
men from the grave is probably to
understate the truth. When JOSEPH
Lister first made his acquaintance with
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.
Ihe wounds made by the surgeons
knife refused to heal, putrefaction was
followed by suppuration, the patients
became delirious and in startling ma
jority of cases died.
1t was Lord Lister who discovered
the deadly secret of all this mortal
1ty. 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
ho to 1T
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 wouli
have meant certain death half GER
tury 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 #
the horrors of the hospitals in pre-
Listerian days, with their delirious
and dying patients, and their COM
pound odor of boiled mutton and sour
poultices" and then to pay a visit to
hospital of to-day to realize how
revolutionary is the change wrought
by this one man.
It 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 3
father, he quickly distinguished him
self among his fellow students, gradu-
ating brilliantly and taking the cov-
eted F. r. c. S. before he was 25
Then followed period of splendid
training under the great surgeon, Mr.
Syme, whose daughter he married, and
in 1850, at the early age of SO, he was
made regius professor of surgery 1T
Glasgow.
It 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 paste of car
bolic acid over the wound, and it was
soon admitted that Ulster wards
| were the healthiest in the world. But,
like many another prophet, he found
least appreciation among his own
countrymen. Germany, France AMI
other continental countries adopted his
methods with avidity, and his fame
was European before Great Britain be-
came 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 10
reap honors such as fall to few men
in a century.
And never, perhaps, did so great a
man bear his honors so modestly. At
78 he remains, to quote a great sur
geon "as simple and lovable as g.
child" His old pupils adore him;
his numberless friends respect ami
love him: the world counts him one
| of it's greatest benefactors For the
rest he is an ardent lover of nature.
skilled in botany and woodcraft, and
he declares that the sweetest music on
earth is the song of birds.
Thrilling Moment.
It was at an English lock that q