12th August 1865: Joseph Lister carries out world's first antiseptic surgery

Hello, and welcome to HistoryPod. On 12 August 1865 Joseph Lister carried out the world's first antiseptic surgery using the chemical phenol, otherwise known as carbolic acid. Lister is remembered among the greats of medical science for being the first person to identify the link between clean hospital conditions and infection rates. To understand the importance of Lister's achievement we need to remember that in the 19th century up to 50% of all hospital patients died of infection. This often occurred after surgery, during which time patients developed what was ward fever, a non-specific range of secondary infections that were caused through poor hospital hygiene where surgeons weren't required to wash their hands or even to wash their stained operating gowns. Having read the work of the Frenchman Louis Pasteur regarding the spread and growth of bacteria, Lister became interested in finding a way to remove infection-causing microorganisms from hospitals. Germ theory of disease was only just becoming more widely accepted, but after the discovery that carbolic acid, now referred to as phenol, had successfully been used to reduce the smell of raw sewage, Lister began experiments using it as what became termed an antiseptic. On 12 August, Lister used a piece of lint covered in carbolic acid to cover the compound fracture wound of a seven-year-old boy. He found that over a period of six weeks the wound healed without developing any infection. Developments in surgical hygiene followed. As well as surgeons wearing gloves, they also began to wash their hands in carbolic acid, as well as washing all their instruments in Lister's 5% solution and spraying it liberally around the operating theatre.