Lister’s antiseptic method often slowed operations down but speed was essential for a good and successful operation. If the operation was slowed down a lot more blood was lost
leaving the patients weak.
Some surgeon’s criticised Lister because when they used his methods they always got
different results. This is because they were
always less systematic. Other surgeons argued that the antiseptic stopped the body's own
defence mechanism operating correctly and successfully.
Lister was the total opposite of Pasteur because he didn’t give impressive public displays and appeared to be cold and arrogant. Lister was always changing his techniques because he wanted to find a substance that would work just as will but without the effects of the CARABOLIC SPRAY.
What was the long-term impact of
Lister’s work?
Joseph Lister reduced the occurrence of wounds infected by introducing antiseptic surgery using carbolic acid, but also he was the first to apply Pasteur's ideas to humans.
As a result of Lister's work and similar work in hospitals in Germany, the need for cleanliness became a lot more common and it staff in
operating theatres began to wear long white gowns which easily showed dirt and use surgical gauze to clean sores and wounds.
Jenner worked in a rural community and most of his patients were farmers or worked on farms with cattle. In the 18th century smallpox was a very common disease and was a major cause of death. The main treatment was by a method which was brought to England in 1721 from Turkey by Lady Mary Wortly Montague. This method involved inoculating healthy people with substances from the pustules of those who had a mild case of the disease, but this often had fatal results.
Jenner now had the opportunity to obtain the material try out his theories. He carefully extracted some liquid from sores and then took some liquid from the sores of a patient with mild smallpox. Jenner believed that if he could inject someone with cowpox, the germs from the cowpox would make the body able to defend itself against the dangerous smallpox germs which he would inject later.
He then encountered the prejudices and conservatism of the medical world that dominated London. They could not accept that a country doctor had made such an important discovery and Jenner was publicly humiliated when he brought his findings to London. However, what he had discovered could not be denied and eventually his discovery had to be accepted – a discovery that was to change the world.
Though these figures appear high – 8048 for the year – they were a sign of the way the fight against smallpox was going. However, as medical treatment was far too expensive for the poor (and it would be the poor who lived in the least hygienic areas) it would be many more years before smallpox was finally eradicated from Britain. The irony is that Jenner gave his cure to the world for free rather than patent it for himself, though doctors could charge their patients for services rendered.
