position, brought about by the influence of the atmosphere upon blood or serum retained within them, and, in the case of contused wounds, upon portions of tissue destroyed by the violence of the injury. "To prevent the occurrence of suppuration, with all its attendant risks, was an object manifestly desirable; but till lately apparently unattainable, since it seemed hopeless to attempt to exclude the oxygen, which was universally regarded as the agent by which putrefaction was effected. But when it had been shown by the researches of Pasteur that the septic property of the atmosphere depended, not on the oxygen or any gaseous constituent, but on minute organisms suspended in it, which owed their energy to their vitality, it occurred to me that decomposition in the injured part might be avoided without excluding the air, by applying as a dressing some material capable of destroying the life of the floating particles." At the time of this statement- March, 1867the list of successful cases of compound fractures, abscesses, contused and lacerated wounds, amputations, strangulated inguinal hernias, etc., had grown so great that Lister felt impelled to impart the knowledge of his procedure to the profession. His wards in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary had become the healthiest in the world. In 1869 Lister was called to Edinburgh as pro fessor of clinical surgery on the retirement of Syme, and at first found himself in a very critical atmosphere. He gave in his first lecture a history of the germ theory, referring to the work of Schwann, Pasteur, and others. He had repeated Pasteur's experiment in which putrescible fluids remained pure in the presence of atmospheric air, and he showed to his audience flasks in which the contents, kept free from dust, were still sweet and clear after a space of two years. As Lister said in later life, from the beginning of his campaign in favor of the antiseptic method he had the youth on his side. He was idolized by the Edinburgh students, and his classes were very large. The poet Henley, who was one of Lister's patients at the Royal Infirmary, has expressed in a sonnet his sense of the surgeon's influence and personality. THE CHIEF His brow is large and placid, and his eye Is deep and bright with steady looks that still. His faultless patience, his unyielding will, His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties, And seems in all his patients to compel As once the son of Zeus with Death and Hell. At Edinburgh, where Lister spent eight years in teaching, practicing, demonstrating and developing his method and technique (as previously at Glasgow, and later at London), surgeons from the continent appeared, eager to sit at the feet of the master of modern scientific surgery. Dr. Saxtorph, professor of surgery in the University of Copenhagen, visited Edinburgh in the summer of 1869. In the following year he wrote to Lister: "Formerly there used to be every year several cases of death caused by hospital diseases, especially by pyæmia, sometimes arising from the most trivial injuries. Now, I have had the satisfaction that not a single case of pyæmia has occurred since I came home last year, which result is certainly owing to the introduction of your antiseptic treatment." In the same month in which these words of commendation were written, the Franco-Prussian War began. The Prussians felt convinced that the sanitary organization of their armies could compete with the best in the world. A large medical division was provided, which on occasion could be broken up into smaller units. There were twelve light hospitals for every thirty thousand combatants. Each soldier carried a tin of dressings. One soldier in eight had been especially trained for emergency duties. Instructions had been given concerning the safety of the open air and the dangers of infection in crowded |