Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/718

698 world; and where he continued the elaboration of his system, introducing some of the simplifications we have already described. In 1877 he was appointed to suceeedsucceed [sic] Sir William Ferguson as professor of clinical surgery at King's College, London. He held this position till 1893. In 1876 he was appointed by the Privy Council to the General Medical Council for Scotland.

Lister's later writings, consisting mainly of articles scattered through various periodicals, have been devoted chiefly to subjects connected with the germ theory of disease, and include investigations into the processes of fermentation and the life history of certain micro-organisms, and papers on the bearing of bacteriology upon surgical treatment.

The discovery of the antiseptic system is a matter of such transcendent importance as almost to obscure the many other improvements and modifications which Lister introduced into surgical practice. He devised a way of bloodless amputation by simply elevating the limb, so that an emptying of it was effected both mechanically and by means of a contraction of the arteries consequent upon the altered position. He invented a tourniquet for compressing the abdominal aorta, whereby the hæmorrhage was diminished in operations in the neighborhood of the hip joint. He introduced the amputation called by his name, and an operation for excision of the wrist. He was the first to undertake osteotomy for the purpose of rectifying deformity of the limbs. He advocated a more complete method than had been practiced of operating on cancer of the breast, and introduced the treatment of fractures of the patella and other bones communicating with joints by means of open incisions and wiring.

The medal of the Royal Society was conferred on Dr. Lister in 1880; and in 1881 the prize of the French Academy of Sciences was awarded to him for his observations and discoveries in the application of the antiseptic treatment in surgery. In 1883 he was made a baronet on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone. In 1896 he was president of the British Association, and in his presidential address gave an extremely modest narrative of his experiments and the development of his aseptic method. He has received numerous honorary degrees and honors from colleges and learned societies. He succeeded Lord Kelvin as president of the Royal Society in 1895; was raised to the peerage as Lord Kinnear in 1897; and is surgeon extraordinary to the Queen.