LISTER, Sir JOSEPH, Baron (1827—). An English surgeon, father of modern antiseptic sur gery. He was born at Upton. Essex, the son of Joseph Jackson Lister, and received his early ed ucation at a school for Friends. Entering the University of London, he took his degree in arts in 1847, and in medicine in 1854, and became Fel low of the Royal College of Surgeons in England in the same year, and of Edinburgh in 1855. He studied at Edinburgh in 1856 and was soon made assistant surgeon and lecturer on surgery at that university. He then became successively professor of surgery at Glasgow, professor of clinical surgery at Edinburgh and at King's Col lege Hospital, London, and was then made sur geon to the Queen. Lister's earliest labors were in histology. His first investigations were di rected toward proving the existence of ordinary unstriped muscle-fibres in the iris. He made in addition many important observations on the early stages of inflammation and the coagula bility of the blood. From time first he taught that pus in wounds was due to time decomposition of blood and serum, brought about in some way by the atmosphere, and insisted on scrupulous cleanliness and the use of deodorant solutions in his surgical wards. It was not, however. until
the work of Pasteur on Fermentation and Putre faction appeared that he fully realized that the formation of pus was due to bacteria. He at once set himself to apply the principles of anti septics to the treatment of wounds. and the development of those principles revolutionized modern surgery. Lister has been the recipient of ninny honors, both at home and abroad. In 1880 both Oxford and Cambridge conferred the degree of LL.D. upon him; he was made a baronet in 1883 and a peer in 1897. He re ceived the medal of the Royal Society in 1880. His more important publications are: Remarks on. a Case of Compound. Dislocation of the Ankle, with Other Injuries, Illustrating the Antiseptic System of Treatment (Edinburgh, 1870) ; On the Effects of the Antiseptic System of Treatment upon the Salubrity of a Surgical Hospital (Edin burgh. 1870) ; A rot/frad/o• to the Germ The ory of Putrefaction and Other Fermentative Changes (Edinburgh. 1875). See ANTISEPTICS.