Joseph Lister

Dr. Joseph Lister was able to reintroduce cleaniness to the medical field. He used carbolic acid to dress a wound to reduce the rate of infection. This relates to Louis Pasteur because the both of them believed in microbes being the reason for disease so they enforce washing your hands and boiling instruments.

The germ theory was proposed by Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur in the 1870s, on the basis that microorganisms were the cause of many diseases.

(Science Museum) During the Gilded Age, surgeons were just beginning to clean their instruments with a solution called, “carbolic acid.”(How Antiseptic Surgery) This solution helped surgery become less dangerous due to infections. Amputations were the most common surgery in that time.

In 1854 Louis Pasteur became a professor of chemistry at Lille. Shortly after, he became interested in fermentation. This was very helpful since alcohol making was a huge industry there. His interest in fermentation resulted in Louis developing many other interests. “In 1857 he jumped around from chemistry, biology then to medicine (Miller, 2002).” In 1860 he discovered pasteurization to kill bacteria in many food and beverages. This made a huge impact on the world. With pasteurization there would now be fewer illnesses due to people ingesting bacteria and parasites.

Despite its barbaric reputation, the Civil War greatly impacted the sanitation systems used in today’s medical fields. One major impact in today’s sanitation systems, are the methods doctors and surgeons use to help prevent disease and infections. One way doctors prevent the spread of diseases, is by washing their hands for a full ten minutes before operating or examining a patient. This method of preventing diseases is efficient because it kills the germs that are on a medical officials hand and prevents them from spreading to the next patient from the doctor or surgeon palpating the patient (“Medicine During the Civil War”). This is one of the greatest medical innovations gained from the Civil War. Since there are now proper medical schools, doctors and surgeons are now able to realize the causes of certain bacterial and viral infections. Another way that today’s sanitation systems were affected from the Civil War, are the precautionary steps that medical officials take to keep today’s hospitals clean from bacteria and viruses. Today’s

Here I focus on his life as a scientist and inventor, touching briefly on his other

“Louis Pasteur – Germ Theory of Disease” Inventors About. Com. 2014. Retrieved on January 13 2014 from Biography.com: http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventors/a/Louis_Pasteur.htm

During the era, people were all living in the same shelter, which allowed germs and diseases to be transmitted. the people were misinformed or lack the knowledge about the hygiene; they thought that being dirty was the road to wealth. Everybody perspective were the same, the rich, and the poor, they all believe that having their face all dirtied up and their teeth unclean were signs of wealth. Until, Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) brought up his Germ theory of disease to the society. Louis’ ideas were well-accepted after 20 years of research. His theory suggested that there is a “ specific disease were caused by a living organism called gems, and that those organism could be controlled in people as well as in beer, wine, and milk (Mckay et al., 2012). Soon after the discovery, the Louis’ theory was implanted in to hospital and schools to find new information for later prevention.

Infection was a serious case back then because antibiotics weren’t around until the late 1920s. Doctors used all of their meds to prevent infection but none can do so they did the practice of ‘debridement’ where they cut the tissues around the wound to prevent other tissues from being infected and after the tissue was cut away, the wound will be sealed.

Lister “believed that sepsis was caused by a pollen like dust” (Cartwright) and his goal was to try to eliminate contact from the pollen like dust from surgery procedures. He learned from Louis Pasteur that this pollen like dust was micro-organisms and that they caused infections in patients. Lister decided that he was going to “eliminate contact of micro-organisms by exposing them to strong chemicals” (Cartwright). He ended up “finding a chemical called carbolic acid, which had been used to clean sewers and now was being used as a wound dressing to cover the wound and reduce the rate of infection” (Wilson). “In 1865, he tried the carbolic acid by putting it on a serious wound of a young boy, and in six weeks, he was completely healed because there was no infection” (The Famous People). This result led to Lister instructing other surgeons to wash their hands and instruments with carbolic acid to promote cleanliness and prevent infection. Due to this practice, “from 1865 to 1869, surgical mortality fell from 45 to 15 percent” (Cartwright and Biography.com Editors). This statistic clearly indicates that the carbolic acid helps prevent infection and mortality and that Lister was correct in his instructing of others to wash their hands and instruments frequently. Before Lister came up with this discovery, people believed that “infection was spread from bad air in the environment” (Hagy). Because people believed that infection was spread

This essay will examine and compare the different methods of hand washing in the perioperative environment and how hand washing influences the prevention of healthcare acquired infections (HCAIs). It will show the importance of washing hands thoroughly to remove bacteria to prevent HCAIs. It will include the differences between the surgical hand wash, the social hand wash and the use of alcohol rubs.

In the fast paced world of Veterinary Medicine, sterilization of surgical materials ranks high in importance. By disinfecting tools used in routine spays and neuters, as well as more advanced procedures, Veterinarians and other health professionals greatly decrease the chances of harmful bacteria entering their patients which could potentially cause life-threatening infections. In order to maintain this sterile equipment in a veterinary clinic, one must wash utensils, wrap them in surgical paper, and autoclave them for fifty minutes.

At the age of 16, William Higginbotham enrolled in a high school physics class. He then earned an undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1932, and continued his studies at Cornell University. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1932. Once he finished his studies, the scientist continued to pursue his career. This man loved physics, and he knew he would make physics his career at the young age of 16. This man was devoted to his

amputation. In 1871, Lister began to use carbolic spray in the operating room to reduce contamination.

Beaver (2008) surgical patients commonly developed postoperative fever followed by purulent drainage from their incision, sepsis and often death. The introduction of the principles of antisepsis by Lister and acceptance of Pasteur's germ theory has led to decrease infection rates. The rationale behind it is the fact that this theory increasingly change the surgery from activity associated with infection and death