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Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister (1827 – 1912) surgeon Wellcome M0003461.jpg Photo by Walter William Ouless –

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Joseph Lister

Joseph Lister was born on April 5, 1827. He was a British surgeon, medical scientist, experimental pathologist, and pioneer of antiseptic surgery and preventative medicine. He revolutionized the craft of surgery in the same manner that John Hunter revolutionized the science of surgery.

From a technical viewpoint, Joseph has been noted as not an exceptional surgeon but his research into bacteriology and infection in wounds raised his operative technique to a new plane where his observations, deductions, and practices revolutionized surgery throughout the world. 

His contribution to the field of physiology, pathology, and surgery was four-fold. Joseph promoted the principle of antiseptic surgical care and wound management while working as a surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary by successfully introducing phenol to sterilize surgical instruments, the patient’s skin, the surgeon’s hands, and the ward.

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1. His Fascinating Early Life

Joseph Lister, Baron Lister and family in Canada. Photograph Wellcome V0027882.jpg Photo by Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 –

Joseph was born to a prosperous educated Quaker family in the village of Upton. He was the fourth child and second son of four sons and three daughters born to gentleman scientist and wine merchant Joseph Jackson Lister and school assistant Isabella Lister. When Joseph was a child, he had a stammer and this was possibly the reason was educated at home until he was eleven. He later attended Benjamin Abbott’s Issac Brown Academy which was a private Quaker school in Hitchin, Hertfordshire,

When he turned thirteen, he attended Grove House School in Tottenham which was also a private quaker school, this was where he studied mathematics, natural science, and languages. His father insisted that he should have a good grounding in French and German because he was already studying Latin. 

Joseph has always noted that his father was his greatest influence and loved how his father always encouraged him in his study of natural history. When he was young, he would collect and dissect small animals like fish which were examined using his father’s microscope.

2. His Interesting University Life

Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister (1827 – 1912) surgeon Wellcome M0003463.jpg Photo by Samuel Begg –

In 1844, just before Joseph’s seventeenth birthday, he moved to an apartment at 28 London Road that he shared with Edward Palmer. Between 1844 and 1845, Joseph continued his pre-matriculation studies, in Greek, Latin, and natural philosophy. Joseph won first prize and was awarded a copy of Charles Hutton’s Recreation in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.

in December 1847, Joseph graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Arts 1st division, with a distinction in classics and botany. As he was studying, Joseph suffered from a mild bout of smallpox which was a year after his brother had died of the disease. In March 1848, Joseph decided to take a long holiday after a nervous breakdown.

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3. His Outstanding Work At Edinburgh

In 1870, Joseph decided to publish On the Effects of the Antiseptic System of Treatment upon the Salubrity of a Surgical Hospital. Later on January 14, 1871, Joseph published his first details of the Gauze and Spray in the British Medical Journal. In the following year, Joseph was elected as a member of the Aesculapian Club

4. Joseph’s Introductory Address

Joseph Lister 1902.jpg Photo by Unknown author –

Joseph held the customary introductory address on October 1, 1877. His subject was The nature of fermentation, he described the fermentation of milk and explained how putrefaction was caused by the fermentation of blood. For his demonstration, he used a series of test tubes that contained milk which was loosely covered with glass caps. The experiment had two conclusions, the first was that unboiled milk had no tendency to ferment and the second being that an organism that Joseph had isolated Bacterium Lactis was the cause of lactic acid fermentation.

His address was badly received. Some noted it as brilliant and most helpful. John Stwart noted it as an inconceivable indifference to the light that to our minds.

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5. The Croonian Lecture of the Time

Joseph retired to the topic of coagulation on January 1, 1863. This was when he presented the Croonian lecture with the title On the coagulation of the blood. The prestigious lecture was given at the invitation of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians and was held before the society in London. This was his most important paper on coagulation as it provided a mature and considered view of the matter, from a professor with a worldwide reputation.

6. His Night at The Sorbonne

In December 1892, Joseph attended the celebration in honor of the 70th birthday of Pasteur at the Sorbonne in Â鶹APP. The Theatre was designed to hold 2500 people and was rowed and included the university governing staff, ministers of state, ambassadors, the President of France Sadi Arnot, and representatives from the Institut de France. 

Joseph received a great ovation for his address to the guests. In his speech, he spoke about the debt that he had and the surgery owed to Pasteur. the two shared a very friendly moment that was captured by Jean-Andre Rixens.

7. The Memorial Fund in His Respect

After his death, the Lord Loster Memorial Fund was established by the Royal Society as a public subscription to raise money for the public good in honor of Lord Lister. This led to the founding of the Lister Medal which is considered the most prestigious prized that cane is awarded to a surgeon.

8. Joseph’s Awards and Honors

On 26 December 1883, Queen Victoria created Joseph a baronet, of Park Crescent in the parish of St Marylebone in Middlesex. Later in 1885, Joseph was awarded the Pour le Merite, which is the highest Prussian order of merit. The order was restricted to 30 living Germans and as many foreigners.

On 8 February 1897, Joseph was further honored when Her Majesty raised him to the peerage as Baron Lister, of Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset. In December 1902, the king of Denmark bestowed upon Joseph the Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog which is an Order of chivalry that gave him more pleasure than any of his later honors.  

9. The Monuments in His Honor

Joseph Lister Memorial, London (2014).JPG Photo by Another Believer –

In 1903, the British Institute of Preventive Medicine was renamed Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in honor of Joseph. The building along with another adjacent building forms what is now known as the Lister Hospital in Chelsea which was opened in 1985. The building Glasgow Royal Infirmary houses cytopathology, microbiology, and pathology departments. The building was named in Lister’s honor to recognize his work at the hospital. 

Joseph is remembered as one of only two surgeons in the United Kingdom who have the honor of having a public monument in London. The statue of Lister was created by Thomas Brock in bronze in 1924 and stands at the north end of Portland Place. There is also a bronze statue of Lister that is mounted on a granite base in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow which was sculpted by George Henry Paulin in 1924.

10. The Scientific Legacy He Left Behind

Joseph was depicted in the Academy Award-winning 1936 film The Story of Louis Pasteur by Halliwell Hobbes. In the film, Joseph is one of the beleaguered microbiologist’s most noted supporters in the otherwise largely hostile medical community.

In September 1965, two postage stamps were issued to honor Joseph on the centenary of his antiseptic surgery at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary of Greenless which was the first-ever recorded instance of such treatment.

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