Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/366

 founded in 1828; nevertheless its staff included several men of distinction, and Lister was especially influenced at an early stage of his career by two of these, Wharton Jones and William Sharpey [q.v.]. The former was professor of ophthalmic medicine and surgery, and the latter the celebrated professor of physiology who did so much to lay the foundations on which the modern school of British physiology was raised. Thomas Graham [q.v.], professor of chemistry at University College, was also one of Lister's teachers. Wharton Jones had conducted researches of far-reaching range in physiology, and it must have been largely owing to his influence that Lister's earliest researches were physiological and dealt with the structure and function of tissues. Sharpey had, if anything, an even greater influence, since he not only directed Lister's early physiological inquiries, but advised him, towards the end of his career at University College, to widen his experience by attending the practice of the celebrated Edinburgh surgeon, James Syme [q.v.]; this advice had the most profound influence in moulding Lister's life and career.

During his student career Lister served as house-physician to Dr. Walter Hayle Walshe [q.v.] and as house-surgeon to (Sir) John Eric Erichsen [q.v.], a well-known and capable surgeon but not specially distinguished for any original contributions to the advance of surgery. In 1852 he took his M.B. degree, and at once commenced original work with success. His first work was on the structure of the iris, and he confirmed and extended the demonstration of R. A. von Kölliker that this structure was muscular. This paper and another on the involuntary muscular fibres of the skin were published in 1853 in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science. In this year he also carried on experimental work on the flow of chyle, and during the years 1853–1858 he published a series of papers dealing with physiological problems. One of the most important, on The Cutaneous Pigmentary System of the Frog, dealt with physiological questions of wide range and advanced considerations that have been only quite recently confirmed. Another paper of great importance, The Early Stages of Inflammation, published by the Royal Society in 1857, was the result of one of the most valuable researches that Lister carried out, and the main conclusions which he then formulated have not been controverted with the lapse of time.

On the completion of his career at University College, and armed with an introduction from Sharpey to Syme, Lister went to Edinburgh in September 1853. Syme was at this time fifty-four years of age, a surgeon of acknowledged eminence with much originality, and at the same time a bold and skilful operator and an inspiring teacher. He was a man of decided views, who rather enjoyed controversy but did not brook opposition. Lister, who at first attended Syme's practice as a visitor, soon became a dresser in order to familiarize himself with Syme's methods, and subsequently acted as his house-surgeon for one year. He then decided to settle in Edinburgh, and in 1856 became assistant surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and took an active part in teaching in the extra-mural school, while continuing his researches on inflammation. In 1860 he was appointed to the chair of surgery in Glasgow University, and a year later became surgeon to the Glasgow Infirmary. From this time onward his studies were mainly concerned with suppuration and the treatment of injuries and wounds, and it was during the next few years that he made the observations and discoveries which revolutionized the treatment of disease and injuries.

The wards allotted to him at Glasgow greatly enlarged Lister's clinical experience, but they ‘were particularly insanitary, and all forms of septic diseases of wounds were constantly present in them’. He was greatly distressed by the mortality which followed upon injuries and operations, and gave much thought to the subject. He felt that the solution of the problem would only be arrived at by the study of inflammation and suppuration; hence these questions played a large part in his instruction and in his research work. In 1867 he clearly summarized his views in the following words: ‘In the course of an extended investigation into the nature of inflammation and the healthy and morbid conditions of the blood in relation to it, I arrived several years ago at the conclusion that the essential cause of suppuration in wounds is decomposition 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.’ At the same time Lister became aware that the causative agent was not the air itself, nor indeed any of its gases, since in some injuries where the skin is not broken, as for example, simple 340