The “most powerful agency in the development of surgery in this century”: The Connections between Scotland, McGill, and Joseph Lister’s Antiseptic Surgery

An exhibition at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine

Dr. Joseph Lister’s method of using carbolic acid as a means of avoiding surgical infection, first published in The Lancet in 1867, revolutionized surgery by significantly lowering mortality rates. Lister had developed the approach while at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow in the 1860s and 1870s, and within two years of the publication of his Lancet article, his surgical method was being attempted by several members of McGill University’s medical faculty. Over the next decade a number of McGill students and faculty travelled to Scotland to observe the approach and obtain personal instruction from Lister himself. This continued a tradition of medical knowledge transfer between Scotland and McGill which dated back to McGill’s establishment and the creation of its first faculty, the Faculty of Medicine.

This exhibition draws on material from the Osler Library, the McGill University Archives, the Faculty of Medicine, the McGill University Health Centre, and elsewhere to illustrate the significant connections between McGill, the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and Dr. Lister’s surgical revolution.

Guests are invited to view the exhibition on the third floor of the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building over the summer.