LISTER, Joseph (BAsox LISTER), Eng lish physician, the founder of aseptic surgery: b. Upton, Essex, 5 April 1827; d. Walmer, 10 Feb. 1912. The son of a member of the Society of Friends who was engaged in business in London as a wine merchant, he was educated for his profession at University College, Lon don, and became house surgeon it Edinburgh Royal Infirmary under Professor Syme, whose daughter he married. He was professor of surgery at Glasgow University, 1860-69; pro fessor of clinical surgery at Edinburgh Univer sity, 1869-77; and from 1877-93 held the same chair in King's College, London, and practised as a consulting physician. His claim to be re garded as the founder of modern surgery is indisputable. The discovery of anmsthetics had widened the field for the surgeon, making possible a vast increase in the number of oper ations; but his footsteps were followed by a great mortality among the patients due to what would now be attributed to blood poisoning. Lister realised the significance in their applica tion to surgery of the results of Pasteur's ex periments on fermentation, and in 1865 he an nounced his new method of disinfecting wounds, bandages and instruments by means of antiseptic dressings, originally cotton wool and carbolic acid and thereby killing the germs.
Later he improved on his methods by the intro duction of aseptic surgery, which aims at the exclusion of bacteria in wounds by a scrupulous cleanliness in the operating theatre and the sterilization of instruments rather than by poisoning them after they have obtained lodg ment. Summing up Lord Lister's work, the British Medical Journal declared that The had saved more lives by the introduction of his sys tem than all the wars of the 19th century to gether had sacrificed.° Honors world wide rained thick upon him; he was created a baro net in 1893, raised to the peerage in 1897 and was one of the first recipients of the Order of Merit. He left no issue.