Joseph Lister Movie

At some point in their lives, almost every person in the modern world has had to be hospitalized. Whether it was for a broken bone, a ruptured appendix, or some other operation, it's likely that a medical professional has had to close up an open wound on you. Now imagine you're living in London during the mid-1800s. Streets are filled with filth, people are constantly sick, and the majority of people you know who have been operated on have died shortly thereafter in the hospital. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? How did the world transform from a world of guesswork and death sentences to the shining pillar of science that we know and love today? The answer is a man named Joseph Lister, who, with the help of his colleagues and those closest to him, introduced the most radical concept in medicine to date, germs. Joseph Lister was born in Upton, England on April 5, 1827. His father, Joseph Jackson Lister, was a wine merchant who used his spare time to improve the optics of the microscope, and Joseph quickly picked up the skill of using his father's improved microscope lenses. When he was 17, he moved to London to begin his studies and received a rude awakening to the state of London's streets, which were filled with garbage, filth, and human waste. While in medical school, Lister was elected president of the school's medical society, then received a position as a surgical dresser for John Erickson at the University College Hospital when he was 23. Throughout medical school and his residency, Lister continued his love for microscopes, constantly observing slides of various animal tissues. In 1853, Lister took a trip to Scotland, where he met the highly skilled surgeon James Syme and became a house surgeon at the better-funded, better-facilitated Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh. It was here that Lister began to gain the knowledge and the experience that truly enabled him to alter medical science forever. At the time of Joseph Lister's career, the majority of hospitals and medical facilities had less than subpar sanitation standards, often plagued by fecal matter, infection, and the stench of death. Some practitioners attempted to use antiseptic technique. However, the techniques used often proved to do more harm than good to the infected tissue. Infection and death within hospitals at the time was so common, in fact, that practitioners were widely viewed as cold, detached personalities who took human mortality incredibly lightly. During Lister's time at medical school, the lack of respect for their cadavers was so widespread that it was not uncommon for students to perform elaborate pranks with human remains, often leaving surprises for unsuspecting new students in various locations around the school. There was no agreement on the cause of infection at the time, and surgeons were often averse to new advancements, especially those that Lister suggested, which uprooted the very foundation of medical science at the time. As a practitioner, Lister had always been intrigued by the source of infection and inflammation in his patients. With the help of his wife, he conducted a number of experiments on various animal tissues in an attempt to find the cause for the seemingly random reaction. He even went as far as to experiment on live frogs, as well as to take samples from his patients' wounds in order to observe them under a microscope at a later time. It was only until Lister discovered papers written by French scientist Louise Pasteur on the development of mold and fermentation that he found the answers he was looking for. Pasteur had posited that the decomposition of food products was a result of tiny organisms he called microbes, which could possibly explain the invisible force that had been causing so much death. Lister and his wife replicated Pasteur's experiments in his own facilities and came to the same conclusion that the infection was a direct result of tiny germs in the air and surrounding environment. In his publication on the antiseptic principle in the practice of surgery, Lister presents the idea that the most integral step in preventing infection is the cleaning of the wound immediately following the injury. Lister's method for destroying the germs inside the wounds, as well as preventing new germs from entering, was by means of carbolic acid. When dressing wounds, Lister first applied carbolic acid of full strength, applying a watertight seal of putty, then finally using a metal cap to cover the wound with frequent changing of dressings. Upon using carbolic acid to dress wounds, infection rates within hospitals declined steeply, along with the instance of patient deaths. Surrounding nations like France and Germany adopted his techniques quickly. However, there was a fair amount of pushback, especially within the USA, where surgeons scoffed at the possibility of these invisible germs. Still, this dramatic change was so compelling that Bigelow, who had once gone as far as to ban antiseptic technique in his hospital on penalty of being fired, developed into a staunch supporter of Lister and even oversaw the Massachusetts General Hospital, of which he was head of surgery, become the first American hospital to institute Lister's techniques. As a direct result of Pasteur and his research and development, within Lister's lifetime, hospitals were transformed from a place of death, filth, and resignation to an institute of understanding and recovery. The main flaw in Lister's techniques, as shown by his own corroded hands, was the carbolic acid he used to wash his hands, sterilize his instruments, and clean wounds was too strong for long-term use. Carbolic acid was better than nothing, but frequently damaged the tissue, and even when instituting proper antiseptic technique, there was a chance that the patient's symptoms would present as a failure of preserving the tissue. The CDC's page of disinfectants endorsed the use of various chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide and formaldehydes in modern hospitals, and carbolic acid is not a CDC-approved disinfectant. Another change from Lister's techniques is that in modern hospitals, antiseptic technique has been replaced by aseptic technique. Hospital cleanliness has since been emphasized compared to Lister's time, hospitals being required to clean not only wounds, but also surgical tools before using them. By sterilizing surgical tools before use, surgeons are preventing microbes from being introduced to the wound in the first place, as opposed to merely aiding the body's immune system in fighting off the infection. Joseph Lister was a man born into an era of death and suffering. Although his understanding of the actual world pales in comparison to the knowledge we hold today, his innate curiosity and academically supportive upbringing allowed him to make changes to the world that affected millions of people. In a time where people feared what they did not understand, Lister revealed an important truth that had the potential to save not millions, but billions of people. Without his understanding of microbes and development of antiseptic technique, the modern world would be plagued with the same superstition and shoddy medical guesswork that was the hallmark of the industrial age. Hospitals would not know to clean wounds and tools with disinfectants, and without his development of antiseptic technique, there would be no room for aseptic technique. However, as worthy of praise Lister is, these accomplishments cannot be attributed to him solely. Lister's work was both founded upon the research of Louis Pasteur and aided by the work of his wife, Agnes, in order to reach fruition. And without the efforts of all three individuals, every time you had to get a superficial wound stitched up or a bone set, you'd have to ask yourself, will I see the light?