Joseph Lister: The Friend of Man (review)

Book Reviews119 Joseph Lister: The Friend of Man. By Hector Charles Cameron. London: William Heinemann. 1948. vii, 180 pages. 17s. 6d. JOSEPH LISTER was the doctor in England who first began to see the significance in surgery of Pasteur's pioneer work with molds and bacteria. He accepted the theory that causes of inflammation in operative or accidental wounds might be invisible spores or germs floating in the air. He saw the probable meaning of the statistical fact that surgical wounds one by one in separate homes had a much better chance to escape infection than similar wounds in the hospitals of those days where there were already septic cases closely crowded. His first successful attempts were to protect wounds from contaminations through the air. He and others later sensed the importance of antisepsis by chemicals or heat for all instruments or materials that might make or touch wounds. His scientific achievements are well set forth in good biographies and are part of western medical history, known everywhere . This book attempts to go into his home and illuminate his personal and private life. Quaker readers will be interested to know that he was born into a well-to-do Quaker family and kept throughout his life a close association with his father and relatives, though in early manhood he resigned from the Society. Even a medical education was hard to get for a Friend in those days. Matriculation at all medical schools but one, the University College of London, required adherence to the Church of England. We get a picture of an earnest, enthusiastic student, too sensitive and overconscientious . At one stage, his college career was interrupted by what might in these days be called a nervous breakdown. His formal separation from Friends he accomplished by resigning, because he wished to marry a non-Friend and would have been disowned. The wife he chose was a charming and accomplished woman whose partnership increased immeasurably the effectiveness of his teaching and research. Written by the son of one of Lister's friends and co-workers, this book draws largely from letters and stories dated during his life. Debate , controversy, even slander and invective are recorded in the medical literature of the time. Here we find the painful reactions of a gentle, sensitive, non-aggressive research scientist, hurt by the criticism of less scientific, sometimes highly commercial surgeons of his day. People tried to copy his procedures without having grasped his guiding principles , then failed to duplicate his results, and said he was wrong or worse. His real character is clearly indicated by the unusual interest and loyalty his students developed. His early years of teaching were in Glasgow or Edinburgh, and many students came there from the continent. It is interesting to see how recognition, imitation and acclaim developed faster in Germany, France, and Austria, until continental surgeons and scientists helped push London into accepting his work. 120Bulletin of Friends Historical Association The book adds appreciably to our knowledge of his human side, his frailties and disappointments. Most of all, perhaps, it pictures clearly his meticulous, never-finished preparation for his beloved lecturing. He rarely condensed, or stopped on time, so some program committees learned to give him a whole session, and not schedule other papers. This is hardly a great book, though about a great man. Glen Mills, PennsylvaniaLovett Dewees, M. D. Sweeper In the Sky: The Life of Maria Mitchell. By Helen Wright. New York: Macmillan. 1949. 253 pages. $4.00. I-TELEN WRIGHT has rescued a very strong-minded, able, nineteenthcentury American woman from the banal sentimentalities of the Victorian era in which she has been enmeshed previously. Maria Mitchell (1818-1889), the first great American astronomer and first woman college professor in the United States, was the daughter of William and Lydia (Coleman) Mitchell, both one-time clerks of Nantucket Monthly Meeting of Friends. Born of a unique Quaker stock whose characteristics were "startling directness, forthright truthfulness, independence, even eccentricity, and above all the humor that made all these traits palatable," Maria Mitchell was disowned in 1837 for doubting the existence of a future state. Despite her alienation from the organized Society of Friends, she incorporated in...