A Great Surgeon

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1, 4 January 1906, Page 5

A Great Surgeon

In an age (says an English periodical) when honors are lavished on men for the skill with which- they sonipass the death of thousands of their fellows one cannot pay too much homage to those whose mission it is to save, and not to destroy, life; -and .happily there still remains among us the King of them '•iA m i an on whose monument may. some day be inscribed this remarkable legend: '.lie saved a quarter ot a million lives,' -' _. . * -I??'*? Other man who ' has ever lived can such a * r r'r«n°rt ni/^T d; ,but 0, but £ t0 assert - that Lord- -Lister, the ' Grand Old Man ' of surgery,' has snatched " 250,000 J £ e ?i, ™ t grave is P roba bly to understate the truth. When Joseph Lister first made his acquaintance Avith a sixty years "ago,, an:' operation ot any. ..importance meant almost certain death, ■ and even quite simple operations were full of risk The wounds made by the surgeon's knife refused to" heal putrefaction was followed by suppuration, the patients became- delirious, and n a! startling- majority of cases It was Lord Lis>rfwho discovered the deadly secret of all this mortality. He found that the .putrefaction

of the wound .was duetto the presence of germs- .which were introduced from outside ; and in carbolic acid he discovered the means to kill these germs, thus by this simple discovery revolutionising surgery and saving-countless-lives. An early result of this 'antiseptic treatment was . that ' gangrene, which had infected 80 per cent, of the wounds, disappeared entirely ' • and to-day operations which would have meant certain death half a century! ago are performed daily without the leastrisk of fatal consequences. Such in briefest outline is the change Lord Lister has wrought in surgery ;■ and one has only to read of the horrors of the hospitals in preListerian days, with their delirious and dying patients and then to pay a visit to a hospital of to-day to realise how revolutionary is The Change Wrought by This One" Man. It is sixty years since young Lister began to study surgery and medicine at University College, London He was the son of a very clever man, a Fellow of the Koyal Society, and the inventor, practically, of the modern microscope ; and, as might be expected from the son of such a father, he quickly distinguished himselt among his fellow-students, graduating brilliantly and taking the coveted F.R.C.S. before he was twentyfive. Then followed a period of splendid training; at Edinburgh under the great surgeon, Mr. Syme, whose daughter he married ; and in 1860, at the early age of thirty-three, he was made Regius Professor of Surgery at Glasgow. ° J It was here that he became so deeply 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 antiseptic surgery by making a paste of carbolic acid over the wound ; and it was -soon admitted that 'Lister's wards' were the healthiest in the world. But like many another prophet he found least appreciation among his own countrymen Germany, France, and other Continental countries adopted his methods with avidity, and his fame was European before Great Britain became a tardy convert to his teaching. However, unlike so many world-benefactors, he has lived to see the universal triumph of his discovery and to reap honors such as fall to tew men in a century Long years ago the University of Budapest conferred an honorary degree on him amid a. scene of unparalleled enthusiasm. In Germany he has long been hailed as the greatest surgeon in all the world— except perhaps Virchow their idol ; and the principal hospital in Rome, the Chnico Umber to 1., has over its chief entrance a bas-relief representing Lister in the act of dressing a wound. He has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society ; Universities have vied with each other in conferring degrees on him ; in 1883 he was created a baronet; and eight years ago he was made a peer and - Privy Councillor (the first man in his profession to receive such an honor). And hever, perhaps, did so great a man bear his honors so modestly. At seventy-eight he remains to quote a great surgeon, 'as simple- and lovable as a child.' His old pupils adore him ; his numberless mends, 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 he declares that the sweetest music on earth is the song of birds.

The 'Irish Independent' had a popularity competition the other day, asking its readers to name the twelve most popular people in Ireland. It is interesting to note the result :— l— Mr. John Redmond, M P • \\ v Eminence Cardinal Logue ;3, his Grace Archbishop Walsh; 4, Dr. Douglas Hyde; 6,. Mr/ John - Too ' M " P< '6 » Sir Ant ? nv '.MacDonnell; 7, Mi William, OBnen, M.P. ; 8, the Lord Lieutenant; 9, -Mr. T M Heay, M.P. ; 10, Mr. Michael Davitt'; 11,-Qountess of Dudley ; and, 12, . -Lord Dunraven, . Amongst those whose places come immediately ' after the - favored - S^w W . ere J~ T^ W ~ R«?sell, M.P., W; . Redmond," M.P., Most Rev. Dr. O'Donnell, T. P. Kiely Sir Wm Butler, Very Rev. Dr. O'Riordan, Most Rev. Dr Healy' Lord- Iveagh, Most Rev. Dr. Peacocke, Lady Gilbert! Sir Horace Plunkett, ' M.A.M.,' Judge Adams, Father Dineen, Mrs. M. T. Pendcr, Richard Croker, Seamaa .MacManus and Miss Alice Furlong. The sporting fraternity did not fail .to stand by their own— " Maior May,' Den< ? Horgan, T. F. Kiely, Richard Burke,. M.F.H. ; Anthony and John Roche topping~that partial ulai section. '