Lister's method
Related people
An historical method for eliminating pathogenic germs while operating.
Lister battled wound infections by disinfecting both the wounds and their surroundings, that is both the air and the dressing, with carbolic acid. It was first practised by Lister in 1865 and described in 1867. Already about 1868 the method was used by the Danish surgeon Valdemar Holmer (1833-1884) in the Kommunehospitalet in Copenhagen.
Bibliography
- Joseph Lister:
- On a New Method of Treating Compound Fractures, Abscess etc., With Observations in the Conditions of Suppuration.
The Lancet, 1867; 1: 326-329, 357-359, 387-389, 507-509; volume 2: pp 95-96.
His first publications of his new antiseptic method.
Reprinted in Medical Classics, 1937, 2: 28-71. - On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery.
The Lancet, September 21, 1867, 90 (2299): 353-356, 668-669.
Reprinted in Medical Classics, 1937, 2: 72-83. - An address on the antiseptic system of treatment in surgery delivered before the Medico-chirurgical Society of Glasgow.
British Medical Journal, London, 1868; II: 53, 101, 461, 515.
British Medical Journal, London, 1969; I: 301.