Joseph Lister Quotes

Joseph Lister?" Liam said suddenly, cutting through the silence. "Really? Him?" Chubs stiffened beside me. "That man was a hero. He pioneered research on the origins of infections and sterilization." Liam stared hard at the faux leather cover of just Chubs's skip-tracer ID, carefully choosing his next words. "You couldn't have chosen something cooler? Someone who is maybe not an old dead white guy?" "His work led to the reduction of post operative infections and safer surgical practices," Chubs insisted. "Who would you have picked? Captain America?" "Steve Rogers is a perfectly legit name." Liam pass the ID back to him. " This is all...very Boba Fett of you. I'm not sure what to say, Chubsie.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong. —ARTHUR C. CLARKE

The best that can be said about Victorian hospitals is that they were a slight improvement over their Georgian predecessors. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement when one considers that a hospital’s “Chief Bug-Catcher”—whose job it was to rid the mattresses of lice—was paid more than its surgeons.

Remarkably, Bichat was able to describe and name twenty-one membranes in the human body, including connective, muscle, and nerve tissue, before he died accidentally in 1802 after falling down the steps of his own hospital.

Anything that leads a man to think it a matter of indifference whether he writes or tells a lie is most pernicious,” Lister wrote; “he comes to write lies afterwards with the same indifference.

The adoption of Lister’s antiseptic system was the most prominent outward sign of the medical community’s acceptance of a germ theory, and it marked the epochal moment when medicine and science merged.

There are not many writers who would mention their divorce lawyer in the acknowledgments, but mine deserves special recognition. Farhana Shazady fought fiercely for my rights. Thank you for teaching me to value myself again.

If Lister had nursed any hope that his diligence and reasoned argument concerning his antiseptic system would convert the American audience, he would be sorely disappointed. One attendee accused him of being mentally unhinged and having a “grasshopper in the head.

Lister understood that being in a hospital could be a terrifying experience and followed his own golden rule: “Every patient, even the most degraded, should be treated with the same care and regard as though he were the Prince of Wales himself.

Erysipelas was one of four major infections that plagued hospitals in the nineteenth century. The other three were hospital gangrene (ulcers that lead to decay of flesh, muscle, and bone), septicemia (blood poisoning), and pyemia (development of pus-filled abscesses).

Those engaged in scientific researches constantly show us that they realize not less vividly, but more vividly, than others, the poetry of their subjects. —HERBERT SPENCER

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong.

From the moment he looked through the lens of his father’s microscope to the day he was knighted by Queen Victoria, his life was shaped and influenced by his circumstances and the people around him. Like all of us, he saw his world through the prism of opinions held by those whom he admired most:

As Lister’s methods evolved, skeptics characterized these constant modifications as admissions on his part that the original system did not work. They didn’t see these adjustments as part of the natural progression of a scientific process

In 1884, the American physician William Pancoast injected sperm from his “best-looking” student into an anesthetized woman—without her knowledge—whose husband had been deemed infertile. Nine months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby. Pancoast eventually told her husband what he had done, but the two men decided to spare the woman the truth. Pancoast’s experiment remained a secret for twenty-five years.

His most famous (and possibly apocryphal) mishap involved an operation during which he worked so rapidly that he took off three of his assistant’s fingers and, while switching blades, slashed a spectator’s coat. Both the assistant and the patient died later of gangrene, and the unfortunate bystander expired on the spot from fright. It is the only surgery in history said to have had a 300 percent fatality rate.

Let us not overlook the further great fact, that not only does science underlie sculpture, painting, music, poetry, but that science is itself poetic.… Those engaged in scientific researches constantly show us that they realize not less vividly, but more vividly, than others, the poetry of their subjects. —HERBERT SPENCER

Las discusiones médicas […] son accidentes inevitables del progreso científico. Son como tormentas que purifican la atmósfera; debemos resignarnos a ellas.

prone to infection, and surgical intervention was extremely

Lister fitou diretamente o rapaz antes de repreendê-lo: 'Como se atreve a me entregar um bisturi que não gostaria que fosse usado no senhor para ser utilizado neste pobre homem?

O que antes era impossível passou a se realizável. O que antes fora inconcebível podia ser então imaginado. De repente, o futuro da medicina pareceu não ter limites.

three pints of pus from his sacral region

Many of these victims would have undoubtedly been

Lister saw the vast importance of the discoveries of Pasteur. He saw it because he was watching on the heights, and he was watching there alone.

Waldemar Haffkine [is] a saviour of humanity.

microscope. The French, in particular, were making discoveries at an extraordinary pace with the aid of the scientific instrument, owing partly to the rise of large hospitals in Paris during the French

O progresso sob a forma da urbanização e da industrialização se dava à custas das vidas humanas, mas o progresso sob a forma de ciência poderia fornecer respostas para problemas crescentes nos hospitais.

The symptoms syphilis engendered worsened over time. In addition to the unsightly skin ulcers that pockmarked the body in the later stages of the disease, many victims endured paralysis, blindness, dementia, and “saddle nose,” a grotesque deformity that occurs when the bridge of the nose caves into the face. (Syphilis was so common that “no nose clubs” sprang up all over London. One newspaper reported that “an eccentric gentleman, having taken a fancy to see a large party of noseless persons, invited every one thus afflicted, whom he met in the streets, to dine on a certain day at a tavern, where he formed them into a brotherhood.” The man, who assumed the alias of Mr. Crampton for these clandestine parties, entertained his noseless friends every month for a year until his death, at which time the group “unhappily dissolved.”)

O papel do conhecimento e da metodologia científicos na prática médica - que foi central para que a profissão deixasse de ser uma arte sanguinolenta e se transformasse numa disciplina voltada para o futuro - ainda não tinha sido estabelecido

Lister compreendia que está num hospital podia ser uma experiência apavorante, e seguia um princípio moral próprio: 'Todo paciente, até o mais degradado, deve ser tratado com o mesmo cuidado e a mesma consideração que se dariam ao próprio príncipe de Gales.

In 1884, the American physician William Pancoast injected sperm from his “best-looking” student into an anesthetized woman—without her knowledge—whose husband had been deemed infertile. Nine months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby. Pancoast eventually told her husband what he had done, but the two men decided to spare the woman the truth. Pancoast’s experiment remained a secret for twenty-five years. After his death in 1909, the donor—a man ironically named Dr. Addison Davis Hard—confessed to the underhanded deed in a letter to Medical World.)

Como observou com perspicácia um dos assistentes de Lister, 'uma nova e grande des coberta cientifica sempre tende a deixar em sua esteira muitas baixas, entre as reputações dos que foram defensores de um método mais antigo. Para eles, é difícil perdoar o homem que tornou insignificante o seu trabalho

four major infections that plagued hospitals in the nineteenth century. The other three were hospital gangrene (ulcers that lead to decay of flesh, muscle, and bone), septicemia (blood poisoning), and pyemia (development of pus-filled abscesses). Any one of these conditions could prove fatal depending on a wide range of factors, not least the age and general health of the sufferer. The increase in infection and suppuration brought on

Fashioned from nearly one million square feet of glass, the Crystal Palace was 1,851 feet long—a number deliberately chosen to reflect the year of the exhibition—and it boasted six times more floor space than St. Paul’s Cathedral. During its construction, contractors tested the building’s structural integrity by ordering three hundred compliant laborers to jump up and down on the flooring, and by having troops of soldiers march around its bays.

But when it has been shown by the researches of Pasteur that the septic property of the atmosphere depended not on the oxygen, or any gaseous constituent, but on minute organisms suspended in it, which owed their energy to their vitality, it occurred to me that decomposition in the injured part might be avoided without excluding the air, by applying as a dressing some material capable of destroying the life of the floating particles. Upon this principle I have based a practice.

When the time came to graduate, he was placed last on the honors list for physiology and comparative anatomy. His professor William Carpenter cited the reason for this slight in a letter to him: “I think it as well to let you know the reason why I found it requisite to place you there.… As answers to my questions, your papers were so defective, that if it had not been for the amount of original observation of which they bore evidence, I could not have placed you in the honours list at all.

Liston’s speed was both a gift and a curse. Once, he accidentally sliced off a patient’s testicle along with the leg he was amputating. His most famous (and possibly apocryphal) mishap involved an operation during which he worked so rapidly that he took off three of his assistant’s fingers and, while switching blades, slashed a spectator’s coat. Both the assistant and the patient died later of gangrene, and the unfortunate bystander expired on the spot from fright. It is the only surgery in history said to have had a 300 percent fatality rate.

In the course of an extended investigation into the nature of inflammation, and the healthy and morbid conditions of the blood in relation to it, I arrived several years ago at the conclusion that the essential cause of suppuration in wounds is decomposition brought about by the influence of the atmosphere upon blood or serum retained within them, and, in the case of contused wounds, upon portions of tissue destroyed by the violence of the injury. To prevent the occurrence of suppuration with all its attendant risks was an object manifestly desirable, but till lately apparently unattainable, since it seemed hopeless to attempt to exclude the oxygen which was universally regarded as the agent by which putrefaction was effected. But when it had been shown by the researches of Pasteur that the septic properties of the atmosphere depended not on the oxygen, or any gaseous constituent, but on minute organisms suspended in it, which owed their energy to their vitality, it occurred to me that decomposition in the injured part might be avoided without excluding the air, by applying as a dressing some material capable of destroying the life of the floating particles.

For the duration of the war, American surgery remained crude, and wound infections spread unchecked. The bullet-riddled arms and legs of more than thirty thousand Union soldiers were amputated by battlefield surgeons, many of whom had little or no experience of treating trauma patients. Knives and saws were wiped free of gore with nothing more than dirty rags, if at all. Surgeons never washed their hands and were often covered in the blood and guts of previous patients at the commencement of a new operation. When linen and cotton were scarce, army surgeons used cold, damp earth to pack open wounds. When these wounds inevitably began to suppurate, they were praised for their laudable pus. Many surgeons had never even witnessed a major amputation or treated gunshot wounds when they joined their regiments, much to the detriment of those who fell under their care.

As it turned out, the two decades immediately following the popularization of anesthesia saw surgical outcomes worsen. With their newfound confidence about operating without inflicting pain, surgeons became ever more willing to take up the knife, driving up the incidences of postoperative infection and shock. Operating theaters became filthier than ever as the number of surgeries increased. Surgeons still lacking an understanding of the causes of infection would operate on multiple patients in succession using the same unwashed instruments on each occasion. The more crowded the operating theater became, the less likely it was that even the most primitive sanitary precautions would be taken. Of those who went under the knife, many either died or never fully recovered and then spent the rest of their lives as invalids. This problem was universal. Patients worldwide came to further dread the word “hospital,” while the most skilled surgeons distrusted their own abilities.

It was said of Liston by his colleagues that when he amputated, “the gleam of his knife was followed so instantaneously by the sound of sawing as to make the two actions appear almost simultaneous.” His left arm was reportedly so strong that he could use it as a tourniquet, while he wielded the knife in his right hand. This was a feat that required immense strength and dexterity, given that patients often struggled against the fear and agony of the surgeon’s assault. Liston could remove a leg in less than thirty seconds, and in order to keep both hands free, he often clasped the bloody knife between his teeth while working. Liston’s speed was both a gift and a curse. Once, he accidentally sliced off a patient’s testicle along with the leg he was amputating. His most famous (and possibly apocryphal) mishap involved an operation during which he worked so rapidly that he took off three of his assistant’s fingers and, while switching blades, slashed a spectator’s coat. Both the assistant and the patient died later of gangrene, and the unfortunate bystander expired on the spot from fright. It is the only surgery in history said to have had a 300 percent fatality rate.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. —JOHN LOCKE

60 JOSEPH LISTER 1827-1912

Joseph Lister, the British surgeon who introduced the use of an tiseptic measures in surgery, was born in 1827, in Upton, England.

His most famous mishap involved an operation during which he worked so rapidly that he took off three of his assistant’s fingers and, while switching blades, slashed a spectator’s coat. Both the assistant and the patient died later of gangrene, and the unfortunate bystander expired on the spot from fright. It is the only surgery in history said to have had a 300 percent fatality rate.

As to brilliant talent I know I do not possess it: but I must try to make up as far as I can by perseverance.

When the moment came to have his leg removed, Pace was brought into the theater blindfolded and pinned down by Liston’s assistants. The boy counted six strokes of the saw before his leg dropped off.

This was one instance in which the medical profession totally rejected something that they were not ready to accept because, in part, there was no framework for understanding the new concept. It was only later, when the causative agents were clearly identified through the work of Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur, and Joseph Lister, that it became accepted that germs cause disease. Koch discovered that a microscopic agent was the cause of tuberculosis and showed this with total certainty, leading to a revolution in medicine. All of a sudden, science and technology seemed to hold tremendous power, once it was understood that so many diseases were caused by infectious agents, and powerful new technologies could be developed to treat them with great specificity. This naturally gave rise to a “find it and fix it” culture. Over the last one hundred years, medical science has given rise to many wonderful things. However, it is now very heavily focused on disease. We spend almost no time on health. We make an assumption that for every disease, there is a defect that we need to find and fix. We don’t deal with people throughout their lives, but only when they’re sick. In the United States, we have become accustomed to assuming that one’s health is managed by one’s doctor, and that individuals have little responsibility or control over their health. Where does this leave us? On the one hand, life expectancy in 1900 was forty years. Today it’s eighty years. We have doubled life expectancy in a hundred years. That’s almost miraculous. On the other hand, in 1900 the most likely cause of death for a young man between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five would have been infection. Today, it’s murder, suicide, drug abuse, or violent accidents. We have made tremendous progress, but some of the consequences of our progress are absolutely terrifying. In addition, we have a tremendous accumulation of chronic diseases, many of which are fostered by people’s own behavior. One of the problems with Western medicine is that it tends to make a reductionist assumption that for every disease, there is a single causative factor that we need to find and fix. We now are learning that there are often multiple factors, rather than a single reductionist cause of disease. People are born with a baseline risk, and then environmental factors impinge on that risk over time. There is a tremendous difference in susceptibility to different diseases, yet we often have a lot of control over environmental factors that contribute to disease progression.

third major scientist responsible for establishing the germ theory—Joseph Lister (1827–1912).