Know the scientist: Joseph Lister

Lister is one of the two surgeons in the United Kingdom who have the honour of having a public monument in London

Joseph Lister (1827 - 1912) was a British medical scientist and a pioneer in preventive medicine. He was the founder of antiseptic medicine, which helped prevent infection during and after surgery. His antisepsis principles laid the foundation of modern infection control. Joseph Lister was born in 1827 in Essex, now in London, into a prosperous family. His father Joseph Jackson Lister was a wine merchant and an amateur physicist and microscopist. His discovery led to the modern achromatic microscope. Soon after graduating in medicine in 1852, Lister became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and house surgeon at University College Hospital in London. In 1861, he was appointed surgeon to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where he was in charge of wards in the surgical block. At that time, wound infections were a common occurrence that frequently killed patients. Doctors did not then realise that patients were dying of operative sepsis, an infection of the blood by disease-producing microorganisms. Between 1861 and 1865 alone, Lister noted that about 50% of his amputation cases died (from sepsis).