1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:05,080 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:09,360 Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a 3 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:13,680 Speaker 1: show for those interested in the big and microscopic moments 4 00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:18,240 Speaker 1: of history. I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're looking at 5 00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:22,400 Speaker 1: a medical breakthrough from Joseph Lister, the father of modern 6 00:00:22,440 --> 00:00:34,000 Speaker 1: surgery and the namesake of Listerine mouthwash. The day was 7 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:39,960 Speaker 1: August twelfth, eighteen sixty five. British surgeon Joseph Lister introduced 8 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,920 Speaker 1: a new technique to help prevent surgical infections. These days, 9 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,519 Speaker 1: we take it for granted that a surgeon's hands and 10 00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:52,000 Speaker 1: surgical instruments have all been sterilized before an operation, But 11 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:55,160 Speaker 1: there was a time as recently as two centuries ago 12 00:00:55,480 --> 00:00:59,200 Speaker 1: when most people balked at the idea that microscopic germs 13 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:04,560 Speaker 1: could spread contagious disease. As a result, hospitals and operating 14 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:09,920 Speaker 1: rooms were often highly unsanitary and even deadly places. Blood 15 00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:13,520 Speaker 1: Stained bed linens and lab coats would often go unwashed 16 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,920 Speaker 1: for days, and surgical instruments like scalpels and forceps were 17 00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:23,520 Speaker 1: used for multiple surgeries before being cleaned. Those unsanitary practices 18 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:27,479 Speaker 1: led to a disturbingly high death rate among surgical patients, 19 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:32,280 Speaker 1: and that number increased exponentially after anesthetics were introduced in 20 00:01:32,319 --> 00:01:36,000 Speaker 1: the eighteen forties. Once patients could be made to feel 21 00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:39,400 Speaker 1: no pain, they were able to undergo more complicated, time 22 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,479 Speaker 1: consuming procedures, but that extra time spent on the operating 23 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:47,600 Speaker 1: table also increased their odds of getting an infection, so 24 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,880 Speaker 1: even when an operation was successful, there was still a 25 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:54,680 Speaker 1: strong chance the patient might become ill or even die 26 00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:59,600 Speaker 1: from a surgical infection. Until Joseph Lister came along, most 27 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:04,080 Speaker 1: surgeons believed that wound infections were caused by miasmas or 28 00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:09,120 Speaker 1: bad air that emanated from the wound itself, but Lister 29 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:13,880 Speaker 1: never found that explanation wholly satisfying. As a young doctor 30 00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:16,919 Speaker 1: in training in the mid eighteen forties, he had accompanied 31 00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:21,480 Speaker 1: surgeons on their rounds cleaning and redressing their patients surgical wounds. 32 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:26,320 Speaker 1: He witnessed the decaying flesh and bodily secretions that resulted 33 00:02:26,360 --> 00:02:30,160 Speaker 1: from infections, but he also noted that some wounds healed 34 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:34,760 Speaker 1: after being cleaned. Those cases seemed to suggest that something 35 00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:38,239 Speaker 1: else had caused the infection, something that had been remedied 36 00:02:38,280 --> 00:02:42,480 Speaker 1: when the wound was cleansed. However, the full truth about 37 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:46,480 Speaker 1: the problem of infection would elude Lister for another twenty years. 38 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:51,320 Speaker 1: His big breakthrough finally came in eighteen sixty four. He 39 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:54,760 Speaker 1: was pulling double duty at the time, working as professor 40 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:58,800 Speaker 1: of surgery at Glasgow University and as a surgeon at 41 00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:03,200 Speaker 1: the Glasgow of Royal Infirmary. His teaching duties led him 42 00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:07,040 Speaker 1: to the work of French scientist Louis Pasteur, who theorized 43 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:10,600 Speaker 1: that the spread of micro organisms or germs, might be 44 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:15,880 Speaker 1: responsible for infectious disease in the body. Pastor never tested 45 00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:19,200 Speaker 1: his theory, but he suspected that germs could be killed 46 00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:22,440 Speaker 1: by certain chemicals, and that once they were destroyed, the 47 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:26,680 Speaker 1: body would be able to heal again. Intrigued by the idea, 48 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:32,040 Speaker 1: Lister applied Pastor's germ theory to the problem of surgical infections. 49 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:35,800 Speaker 1: His goal was to create a chemical barrier, which he 50 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:39,680 Speaker 1: called an antiseptic, to keep germs from entering a wound 51 00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:43,840 Speaker 1: during and after surgery. He experimented with a number of 52 00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:47,800 Speaker 1: chemicals without much success, but his search eventually led him 53 00:03:47,800 --> 00:03:51,960 Speaker 1: to carbolic acid, also known as phenol. It was a 54 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,200 Speaker 1: derivative of coal tar, and English officials had recently found 55 00:03:56,200 --> 00:03:59,040 Speaker 1: good results in using it to reduce the stench of 56 00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:03,240 Speaker 1: sewage cesspools. Having heard of this development in the news, 57 00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:07,520 Speaker 1: Lister reasoned that carbolic acid had likely killed the bacteria 58 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:10,760 Speaker 1: and parasites that had festered in the sewage, and that 59 00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:13,160 Speaker 1: the chemical might be able to do the same when 60 00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:17,080 Speaker 1: introduced to an open wound. Lister got the chance to 61 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:22,080 Speaker 1: test that theory on August twelfth, eighteen sixty five. That day, 62 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:25,960 Speaker 1: an eleven year old boy named James Greenlea's was admitted 63 00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:29,680 Speaker 1: to the Accident ward at Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland. 64 00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:32,720 Speaker 1: He had been run over by a street cart and 65 00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:37,760 Speaker 1: was suffering from a compound fracture of the lower left leg. Lister, 66 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,880 Speaker 1: who was thirty eight years old, was the house surgeon 67 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:43,719 Speaker 1: on duty at the time. He knew that setting the 68 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:46,960 Speaker 1: bone would be a relatively minor procedure, so he decided 69 00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:48,720 Speaker 1: to use it as a chance to try out a 70 00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:53,480 Speaker 1: new technique he'd been developing. After chloroforming his young patient 71 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:56,880 Speaker 1: into a pain free slumber, Lister set to work washing 72 00:04:56,960 --> 00:05:00,880 Speaker 1: out the wound and applying a dressing of diluted carrbolic acid, 73 00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:04,440 Speaker 1: a splint and bandages were put in place as well, 74 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:07,960 Speaker 1: and in the following weeks the carbolic acid dressing was 75 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:13,039 Speaker 1: periodically refreshed. In the past, the boy's chances of surviving 76 00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:16,600 Speaker 1: his minor operation would have been fifty to fifty at best, 77 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:20,280 Speaker 1: but thanks to Lister's use of antiseptics, his wound was 78 00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:24,520 Speaker 1: able to scab over and eventually heal without ever getting infected. 79 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:29,760 Speaker 1: Now convinced that carbolic acid really did kill germs on contact, 80 00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:34,440 Speaker 1: Lister used it to develop an entire antisepsist system. Not 81 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:37,480 Speaker 1: only did he apply it to wounds and incisions, he 82 00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:40,240 Speaker 1: washed his hands with it and used it to sterilize 83 00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:44,359 Speaker 1: his instruments. He also applied the chemical to bandages and 84 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:46,800 Speaker 1: sprayed it on the surfaces and in the air of 85 00:05:46,880 --> 00:05:51,640 Speaker 1: operating rooms. Lister used these methods in all of his surgeries, 86 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:55,360 Speaker 1: as well as in clinical trials. Then, in eighteen sixty 87 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:58,000 Speaker 1: seven he reported the results at a meeting of the 88 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:03,520 Speaker 1: British Medical Association. My wards, he said, have completely changed 89 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:06,520 Speaker 1: their character, so that during the last nine months not 90 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:11,800 Speaker 1: a single instance of blood poisoning, hospital gangrene or erysipolis 91 00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:15,159 Speaker 1: has occurred in them. It took a good while for 92 00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:18,919 Speaker 1: Lister's colleagues to condone his methods. Most of them still 93 00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:22,440 Speaker 1: didn't believe the germs caused infections, and many thought that 94 00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:27,960 Speaker 1: the antiseptic system would take too long to implement effectively. Eventually, though, 95 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:32,760 Speaker 1: the evidence was too powerful to overlook. Between eighteen sixty 96 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:36,200 Speaker 1: five and eighteen sixty nine, the death rate after surgery 97 00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:39,800 Speaker 1: and Lister's ward fell from higher than fifty percent to 98 00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:44,679 Speaker 1: just fifteen Surgeons around the world began adopting his methods 99 00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:48,920 Speaker 1: after that and soon found similar results, making surgery safer 100 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:52,599 Speaker 1: than it had ever been up to that point. Lister's 101 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:57,479 Speaker 1: antisepsist system became the basis of modern infection control, and 102 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:01,440 Speaker 1: the principles behind it continued to say thousands of lives 103 00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:10,080 Speaker 1: every day. I'm Gabe blues Gay and hopefully you now 104 00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:13,840 Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday. 105 00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:16,360 Speaker 1: If you'd like to keep up with the show, you 106 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:20,160 Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI 107 00:07:20,680 --> 00:07:24,280 Speaker 1: HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions, 108 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:26,800 Speaker 1: feel free to send them my way by writing to 109 00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:31,760 Speaker 1: this day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias 110 00:07:31,840 --> 00:07:34,400 Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening 111 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:37,720 Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day 112 00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:39,080 Speaker 1: in history class.