LISTON, ROBERT, a celebrated surgeon, was b. at Ecclesmaehan, in the county of Linlithgow, in 1794, and was the son of the rev. Henry Liston, the minister of the parish. After studying anatomy under Barclay in Edinburgh, and following the usual course of medical study in that city, he proceeded to London in 1816, where lie attended the surgical practice of the Blizards at the London hospital, and of Abernethy at St. Bartholomew's. After becoming a member of the royal college of surgeons of London, he returned to Edinburgh, and in 1818 was elected a fellow of the royal college of sur geons of that city.
Liston now commenced his career as a lecturer on anatomy and surgery, and soon became remarkable for his boldness and skill as an operator. In consequence of his performing many successful operations on patients who had been discharged as incurable by the surgeons of the Edinburgh infirmary, he was requested by the managers to refuse his assistance to any person who had been a patient in that institution, and to abstain from visiting the wards. He naturally declined to accede to these extraordinary propo sitions, and in consequence was expelled, and never entered again its wards, until in 1827 he was elected one of its surgeons. His surgical skill, and the rapidity with which
his operations were performed, soon acquired for him a European reputation; and in 1835 he accepted the invitation of the council of University college to fill the chair of clinical surgery. He soon acquired a large London practice; in 1£340 he was elected a member of the council of the college of surgeons; and in 1846 he became one of the board of examiners. In the very climax of Ins fame, and apparently in the enjoyment of vigorous health, he was struck down by disease, and died Dec. 7, 1847.
His most important works are his Elements of Surgery, which appeared in 1831, and his Practical Surgery, which appeared in 1837, and has gone through four editions. His uncontrollable temper, and the coarseness of language in which he frequently indulged, involved him in various quarrels with his professional brethren; yet, not withstanding these defects, he always succeeded in obtaining the regard and esteem of his pupils.