LORD LISTER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 367, 30 May 1928, Page 13

LORD LISTER

GREAT SURGEON’S WORK PHOTOGRAPH UNVEILED (Special to THE' SUN) PALMERSTON N„ To-day. Opportunity was taken at the opening of the Palmerston North maternity home to have the Minister of Health, the Hon. J. A. Young, unveil the memorial photograph of Lord Lister, which is hung in the main building of the hospital. In traversing the history of Lord Lister, the Minister said that historians had been more liable to praise kings and queens and leaders in battle than men who had advanced the cause of suffering humanity, but the great work of Lord Lister commanded the recognition and thanks of the world. “Lister,” said the speaker, “was born in 1827, and at the age ot 17 left public school and for three years went to the university, where he took his B.A. degree. He later turned to surgery, taking his M.B. degree and a gold medal in surgery. It is interesting to note in the lives of many what an influence domestic life may have. Lister had no children, and was able to devote his life to surgery and his studies. Surgery at that time meant practically death, for death seemed to follow the knife, and the dreaded trouble was “hospital gangrene.” Persistently Lister endeavoured to find out what caused it, and tirelessly he continued his researches. “It was remarkable,” continued the Minister, “that in the 16 years between 1811 and 1827 three men were born who were destined to relieve and as sist humanity—Pasteur, who was born in 1822; Sir James Simpson; born in 1811; and Lord Lister, in 1827. “In those days maternity homes were feared, and women who entered them did so in fear and trembling, for 26 out of every 100 were carried out dead, and in surgical operations two out of five succumbed. Hospitals in London and Paris were nothing but hotbeds of pestilence, and most of the mothers fell victims to the dreaded septic poisoning.

“At the age of 32 Lister was appointed professor of the clinical surgery of Glasgow, and later to the Glasgow Infirmary*-. It was not till 1863, however, that Lister made real progress, when he read Pasteur’s paper Researches of Putrefaction/ and learned that putrefaction was caused by tiny organisms. This gave him the key. The next step was amazing, for it went from sewage to surgery, and it was Lister, and Lister alone, who cleaned the hospitals of the world.”