Sir
Joseph
"1st Baron Lister"
Lister
OM PC PRS
Born in Upton, Essex, England
Ancestors 
Brother of
Mary (Lister) Godlee and Isabella Sophia (Lister) Pim
Husband of
Agnes (Syme) Lister
— married
1856 in Edinburgh, Scotland
Died
at age 84
in Walmer, Kent, England
Profile last modified
| Created 10 Mar 2014
This page has been accessed 3,703 times.
| Joseph Lister OM PC PRS is managed by the England Project. Join: England Project Discuss: england |
Known as the 'father of modern surgery'. Introduced carbolic acid (phenol) and the importance of antiseptics in surgery.
Biography
Joseph Lister OM PC PRS is Notable.
Joseph Lister was born on 5 April 1827 in Upton, Essex, England to Joseph Jackson Lister and Isabella Harris. [1] [2] He was the second son of six children; his family were Quakers. His father was known as a 'gentleman scientist' - he perfected the compound microscope and was elected to the Royal Society in 1832, when his son Joseph was five. His mother had worked at a Quaker school for the poor.
Joseph was a Friend (Quaker)
Joseph Lister attended various Quaker private schools and also followed his father in studying natural history, dissection, and microscopic creatures. When he reached the age of seventeen, however, his Quaker membership barred him from attending Oxford or Cambridge University. He attended University College London Medical School, which accepted Quakers. His medical studies were also delayed when he suffered a bout of smallpox and a nervous breakdown. However, he began them again; he appears on the 1851 census as a medical student, living in London. [3]
Lister was accepted into the Royal College of Surgeons in 1852 as a Fellow, working with James Syme, at whose house he met his future bride: Agnes Syme (daughter to James). She was not a Quaker, so Joseph decided to leave the faith and joined the Scottish Episcopal Church. The couple were married in 1856; Agnes became Joseph's lab assistant. [4]
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| Joseph Lister |
Lister gave lectures and wrote papers, but his main interest was in physiological experiments, using frogs and bats. He wrote about the muscles of the eye and skin, collaborating with other leading scientists.
(Details of some of his experiments can be found in his Wikipedia entry.)
At the time, most people believed that post-surgical infection arose because of 'miasma' or 'bad air'; surgeons did not wash their hands before an operation, and stains on their aprons were signs of experience. Lister was influenced by the writings of Louis Pasteur and the discovery of phenol by Friedlieb Runge in 1834. Lister experimented with surgical incisions and dressings dipped in carbolic acid, and revolutionised surgical practices (such as washing hands before an operation). The theory of germs causing disease led to 'aseptic surgery' or, surgery completely free of disease-causing micro-organisms. Lister abandoned his carbolic acid spray many years later, once 'germ theory' had become more well-known. Lister also worked on kneecaps, providing new ones held together by wire. He also worked on the technique of mastectomy. On the 1891 census, he is in Park Crescent as a Surgeon Professor, with his wife, her sister Lucy Maria, and four servants. [5]
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| Agnes Syme Lister |
His wife, Agnes, died in 1893 of acute pneumonia. Lister retired from practice and sank into deep depression. He suffered a stroke, but later was appointed 'Serjeant Surgeon' to Queen Victoria. After she died, he saved her son, Edward VII, by an urgent appendectomy. On the 1901 census, he is still living in the same house he lived in with his wife, together with her sister and four servants. He is not described as having an occupation. [6]
By the 1911 census, Joseph Lister has moved - with his sister-in-law - to Walmer in Kent, England. He is described as a 'Retired Surgeon'. [7]
Joseph Lister died on 10 February 1912 in Walmer, Kent, England, aged 85. [8] He merited a large public funeral service at Westminster Abbey, and is buried in Hampstead Cemetery in London. [9] His will was probated at £67,996 - millions in today's money.
Awards and Honours
- Cothenius Medal, German Society of Naturalists (1877)
- Created Baronet by Queen Victoria (1883)
- Awarded Prussian Pour le Merite (1885)
- Awarded Cameron Prize for Therapeutics by University of Edinburgh (1890)
- Elected an associate of the Academie des Sciences (1893)
- Elected president of the Royal Society (1895)
- Awarded Gold Medal by Royal College of Surgeons (1897)
- Raised to peerage as Baron Lister by Queen Victoria (1897)
- Appointed Privy Counsellor by King Edward VII (1902)
- Received Order of Merit (1902)
- Awarded Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog by King of Denmark (1902)
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| Lister Medal |
Note: The 'Lister Medal', named after Sir Joseph Lister, was awarded first in 1924 and given to those who had made outstanding contributions to science.
Sources
- ↑ "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NVD9-YB5 : 30 December 2014, Joseph Jackson Lister, 05 Apr 1827); citing , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 587,998.
- ↑ "England and Wales Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F74H-2J4 : 11 December 2014), Joseph Lister, 05 Apr 1827, Birth; citing p. 41, Barking, Essex, record group RG6, Public Record Office, London.
- ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1851," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SGB1-HR7 : 29 July 2017), Joseph Lister in household of William Browery, Saint Pancras, Middlesex, England; citing Saint Pancras, Middlesex, England, p. 55, from "1851 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO HO 107, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
- ↑ Newington and Grange Registration District, Scotland, archive reference 685/2 19, viewed via scotlandspeople.gov.uk 24 April 21
- ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:358F-5ZM : 1 April 2016), Joseph Lister, St Marylebone, London, England; from "1891 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 12, London county, subdistrict, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
- ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1901," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X9DV-5FV : 8 April 2016), Joseph Lister, St Marylebone, London, Middlesex, England; from "1901 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing All Souls subdistrict, PRO RG 13, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey.
- ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XW6H-4V9 : 2 August 2017), Joseph Lister, Walmer, The Beach Lower Walmer, Kent, England; from "1911 England and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 14, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
- ↑ "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2N13-1MD : 31 December 2014), Joseph Lister, 1912; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Death, Eastry, Kent, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
- ↑ "British Newspaper Archives, Obituaries", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q269-THR2 : 9 March 2017), Joseph Lister, 1912.
See Also:
- Wikipedia entry for Joseph Lister
- "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVJ1-BVVG : 13 December 2015), Joseph Baron Lister, 1912; Burial, Hampstead, London Borough of Camden, Greater London, England, Hampstead Cemetery; citing record ID 9406, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.
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L > Lister > Joseph Lister OM PC PRS
Categories: This Day In History April 05 | Order of Merit | University College London | University of Edinburgh | University of Glasgow | Surgeons | Presidents of the Royal Society | Doctors | English Authors | Medical Pioneers | Notables
We are featuring Joseph alongside Louis Pasteur, the Example Profile of the Week in the Connection Finder, on April 28, with the theme of medical innovators. Between now and then is a good time to take a look at the sources and biography to see if there are updates and improvements that need made, especially those that will bring it up to WikiTree Style Guide standards. We know it's short notice, so don't fret too much. Just do what you can. A Team member will check on the profile the day before the Connection Finder is updated and make last minute style-guide changes as necessary.
Thanks! Abby
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/letters/lister4.html
The Mary Lister to whom Ellen Alexander wrote in 1840 was the eldest child of Joseph Jackson Lister and Isabella Harris, and thus the eldest sister of Joseph (later Lord) Lister, the famous surgeon. Mary was born in 1820 at Upton House in Essex, making her 20 years old at the time of the letter. She later (1851) married Rickman Godlee, a Quaker barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and they had six children. The second child, later Sir Rickman John Godlee, became a distinguished neurosurgeon and wrote the principal biography of his uncle Lord Lister. Another son, Francis Godlee, founded a successful cotton milling firm and later financed the first telescope for Manchester Unversity's Astronomy department; the present Godlee Observatory at Manchester is named in his honour.
The Isabella to whom Ellen Alexander gives her kind love in the last paragraph was Mary's sister, Isabella Sophia Lister, who would have been 17 years old at the time of writing. Nearly thirty years later she was to be one of the earliest patients (some say the first patient) on whom her younger brother Joseph performed major surgery using his pioneering antiseptic technique. One feels that this must have required great courage on both sides.
Joseph Jackson Lister, the father of these two girls, was an impressive person and at least as interesting as his famous son Joseph. He was immensely versatile — a successful businessman, an acclaimed scientist, a sound Latin scholar and a competent artist — and also found time to guide and finance the careers of many of the next generation.