Page:The Harveian oration 1906.djvu/15

Rh secure acceptance! The seniors among us who lived through that instructive period remember well that only those who were awake when the dawn appeared assented at once to the brilliant demonstration. We are better prepared to-day; and a great discovery like that of Schaudinn is immediately put to the test by experts in many lands, and a verdict is given in a few months. We may have become more plastic and receptive, but I doubt it; even our generation—that great generation of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, had a practical demonstration of the slowness of the acceptation of an obvious truth in the long fight for the aseptic treatment of wounds. There may be present some who listened, as I did in October, 1873, to an introductory lecture at one of the largest of the metropolitan schools, the burden of which was the finality of surgery. The distinguished author and teacher, dwelling on the remarkable achievements of the past, concluded that the art had all but reached its limit, little recking that within a mile from where he spoke, the truth for which he and thousands had been striving—now a conscious possession in the hands of Joseph Lister—would revolutionize it. With scores of surgeons here and there throughout the world this truth had been a latent possession. Wounds had healed per primam since Machaon’s day; and there were men before Joseph Lister who had striven for cleanliness in surgical technique; but not until he appeared could a great truth become so manifest that it everywhere compelled acquiescence. Yet not without a battle—a long and grievous battle, as many of us well knew who had to contend in hospitals with the opposition of men who could not—not who would not—see the truth.

Sooner or later—insensibly, unconsciously—the iron