A Time to Heal: The Diffusion of Listerism in Victorian Britain (review)

Jerry L. Gaw. A Time to Heal: The Diffusion of Listerism in Victorian Britain. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 89, pt. 1. Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1999. xii, 173 pp., illus. $25.00 (cloth), $20.00 (paper).

In 1994 the Journal of the History of Medicine published articles on the acceptance of Listerian antisepsis in Canada and the United States, but as is the case of honoring prophets in their own lands, a study of Listerism in Victorian Britain was not included. Jerry Gaw’s book remedies this deficiency as it succinctly outlines the background of Lister’s discovery, his struggles to convince the medical and surgical professions of its efficacy, and Listerism’s eventual acceptance and Lister’s eventual apotheosis by the 1890s. The book uses categories drawn from “diffusion studies” to explain how this happened (Gaw views “diffusion” as synonymous with “acceptance”). This imposes a certain orderliness on the material as each chapter takes the form “N as a Factor in the Diffusion of Listerism,” where N = medical administration, social interpretation, professional tradition, national competition, theoretical orientation, experimental investigation, technical evolution, surgical demonstration, and final assimilation. The factors are superimposed on the history of Listerism, and this leads, unfortunately, to a weakness in the book’s argument, for it implies that social interpretation followed medical administration and in turn was followed by professional tradition as factors in the diffusion of Listerism, and so on. The factors are not artificial, but they are not as airtight or sequential as they are presented here. Also, Gaw accepts too readily Osler’s assertion that the difference between antisepsis and asepsis is the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee (p. 133). Although based on the same principle, they arguably have separate histories.

The book rests on a solid foundation of research of the relevant secondary and primary sources. Gaw has scoured the British medical press and synthesized well the various strands of the debate surrounding Listerism. Gaw’s background is in modern British history, and this serves him well in placing the debate about Lister into its wider context of Victorian institutions and expectations. He adds to the book’s value by includinga chronology of Lister’s life and achievements, a glossary of some 300items, and a bibliography. Historians seeking a general introduction toLister will find this book useful, but specialists will be disappointed inthat it breaks no new ground. On the whole, it contains much useful knowledge and would be an ideal text for use in undergraduate history courses.

Reviewed by Thomas P. Gariepy, Ph.D.,
Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, Stonehill College,
Easton, Massachusetts 02357.

...