Lister at home and abroad: a continuing legacy

Crowther, M. A.

doi:10.1098/rsnr.2013.0031

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…[40][41][42] In addition, his surgical trainees spread Listerian principles worldwide wherever they worked after leaving Edinburgh. 43 Although asepsis later supplanted carbolic acid in wound care and surgery, Lister's work fundamentally changed surgery by creating a system of practical recommendations based on germ theory. Its initial success fueled the acceptance of germ theory and, thus, paved the way for the acceptance of asepsis, saving countless lives from postoperative infection.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbolic Acid before Joseph Lister: Rail Ties, Sewage, Manure, and the Great Stink

Ehrhardt

Nakayama

O’Leary

2019

The American Surgeon™

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Before Joseph Lister's landmark Lancet publications on the use of carbolic acid wound dressings in 1867, surgeons Jules Lemaire in France and Enrico Bottini in Italy had already used carbolic acid on hundreds of patients to control suppurative wounds. After Friedlieb Runge isolated it from coal tar in 1834, a number of scientists recognized the efficacy of carbolic acid in preventing decay and neutralizing the stench of dead animals and human cadavers. Frederick Calvert, Alexander McDougall, and Angus Smith in Manchester promoted a powdered form of carbolic acid as a deodorizing agent to treat municipal sewage across the United Kingdom, most notably during London's famous “Great Stink” of 1858. Edmond Corne in France introduced his formulation, which Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau, Ferdinand LeBeuf, and Lemaire adapted for clinical use in 1859. Lemaire wrote extensively on carbolic acid and its surgical application in three publications from 1860 to 1862. In 1866, Bottini published his experience of 600 cases where it was used. In 1865, Lister began to use carbolic acid in open fractures after Thomas Anderson, his colleague in agricultural chemistry at the University of Glasgow, told him about its use in Carlisle sewage works. This article traces the rich history of carbolic acid from an unknown compound in coal to the cornerstone of Listerism in late-19th–century operating rooms.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbolic Acid before Joseph Lister: Rail Ties, Sewage, Manure, and the Great Stink

Ehrhardt

Nakayama

O’Leary

2019

The American Surgeon™

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“…69 The perception of his methods as being fussy and overly elaborate was part of the reason for the patchy reception of Lister's early work. 70 However, Lister's approach shaped surgery. A growing number of followers shared his concern for details.…”

Section: Pedantry As a Virtue: Antisepsismentioning

confidence: 99%

‘The Days of Brilliancy are Past’: Skill, Styles and the Changing Rules of Surgical Performance, ca. 1820–1920

Schlich¹

2015

Med. Hist.

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This paper examines how, over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the appreciation of skill in surgery shifted in characteristic ways. Skill is a problematic category in surgery. Its evaluation is embedded into wider cultural expectations and evaluations, which changed over time. The paper examines the discussions about surgical skill in a variety of contexts: the highly competitive environment of celebrity practitioners in the amphitheatres of early nineteenth-century Britain; the science-oriented, technocratic German-language university hospitals later in the century; and the elitist surgeons of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century United States with their concerns about distancing themselves from commercialism and cheap showmanship. For analysing the interaction of surgical practices with their various contexts the paper makes use of the concept of 'performance' and examines how the rules of surgical performance varied according to the prevailing technical, social, and moral conditions. Over the course of the century, surgical performance looked more and more recognisably modern, increasingly following the ideals of replicability, universality and standardisation. The changing ideals of surgical skill are a crucial element of the complex history of the emergence of modern surgery, but also an illuminating example of the history of skill in modern medicine.Keywords: History of Surgery, Skill, Performance, Body History 'The brain of an Apollo, the heart of a lion, the eye of an eagle, and the hand of a woman' 1 -often used and attributed to a variety of original sources, this dictum brings together some of the heterogeneous qualities attributed to the ideal surgeon at various times in history. Thomas SchlichAt the same time it represents a typical way of using cultural references to characterise surgical capabilities. It seems to be self-evident that among the capabilities of a surgeon technical skill is essential. But surgical skill is a problematic category that took on different meanings in the course of the history of modern surgery and it was associated with different values, specific to historical contexts. In this paper I look at how over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the appreciation of skill in surgery shifted in characteristic ways. For that purpose I first define and characterise surgical skill as a historical phenomenon and introduce the concepts of style, repertoires and performance in order to describe and analyse its history. The idea of performance, in particular, makes it possible to connect the discussions of surgical skill and with the technical conditions, the professional contexts and the moral regimes at particular times and in particular places, as well as describing the overall trend towards a recognisably modern way of performing surgery.

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Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences, 2013

2013

Isis

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Lister at home and abroad: a continuing legacy

Cited by 6 publications

References 12 publications

Carbolic Acid before Joseph Lister: Rail Ties, Sewage, Manure, and the Great Stink

Carbolic Acid before Joseph Lister: Rail Ties, Sewage, Manure, and the Great Stink

‘The Days of Brilliancy are Past’: Skill, Styles and the Changing Rules of Surgical Performance, ca. 1820–1920

Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences, 2013

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