From 5 April 1827 to 10 February 1912, Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, OM, PC, FRS, FRCSE, FRCPGlas, FRCS, was a British surgeon, medical researcher, experimental pathologist, and the father of antiseptic surgery and preventive medicine. In a similar way to how John Hunter transformed the science of surgery, Joseph Lister revolutionised the art of surgery.
Technically speaking, Lister was not a particularly good surgeon, but his study of bacteriology and infection in wounds elevated his surgical method to a new level, where his discoveries, inferences, and methods changed surgery all over the world.
Lister made four distinct contributions to the domains of surgery, pathology, and physiology. When he was a surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, he successfully introduced phenol (formerly known as carbolic acid) to disinfect surgical tools, the patient's skin, sutures, the surgeon's hands, and the ward. This helped to establish the notion of antiseptic surgical treatment and wound management. Second, he investigated how inflammation and tissue perfusion affected how wounds healed.