Tag Archives: Joseph Lister

How black turned white

September 3, 2021

Kateryna Tsoi Kharkiv, Ukraine   The Gross Clinic, 1875. By Thomas Eakins. Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Via Wikimedia. In 1876, the World’s Fair was held outside Europe for the first time, taking place in Philadelphia and coinciding with the centenary of the US Declaration of Independence. Thomas Eakins, not yet a […]

The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the legacy of Long John Silver

November 23, 2020

George Venters Scotland   The “Old Surgical Hospital” as it is today. Courtesy of Dr. Iain MacIntyre. Faced with the danger of having his right foot amputated in 1873, the real “Long John Silver,” the English poet William E. Henley, turned for help to Joseph Lister and became a patient in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. […]

Joseph Lister and the story of antiseptic surgery

January 22, 2017

In some respects the year 1860 represents a watershed in the history of surgery. It was the year when a young surgeon from the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary by the name of Joseph Lister came to the University of Glasgow to take up the position of Regius Professor of Surgery. It was also a time when […]