Disinfection methods are very important for surgical operations and can greatly reduce the mortality of surgical operations. However, in the process of obtaining widespread recognition and promotion in the medical community, disinfection methods have encountered unprecedented difficulties.
Although the nineteenth century was called the century of "scientific discoveries," until the middle of the nineteenth century, the medical field still had no knowledge of infectious diseases. Many doctors did not realize the necessity of disinfection. During the operation, the patient put on the blood-stained surgical gown. It was not regarded as unhygienic. On the contrary, it made people think that the doctor had rich surgical experience.
Hungarian obstetrician Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis) is generally regarded as a pioneer in the implementation of disinfection methods. During his work at the Vienna General Hospital, he required doctors to wash their hands carefully with bleaching powder before delivery. The final effect Significantly, the number of fever puerperiums in the hospital has decreased dramatically.
However, at that time, the "natural generation theory" was very popular in the medical community. It was believed that the decay of organic matter occurred naturally. Sewage could give birth to mosquitoes, garbage could give birth to insects and ants, and feces could give birth to maggots and flies. Many authoritative philosophers and scientists from Stodd to Newton were convinced that the theory that infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms was still not widely accepted in the medical community. On the other hand, Semmelweis is a poor writing, not good at speaking, not like to communicate with others, even the Hungarian mother tongue is not fluent, and he did not actively publish the observation results in medical journals, and lacked a set of Standard procedures are used to prove their disinfection theory. Therefore, the medical profession is still the same, unwilling to accept the suggestion of "washing hands" before Semmelweis surgery.
It is the British surgeon Joseph Lister (Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister) who really carried forward the disinfection method. When the famous French microbiologist Louis. On April 7, 1864, Louis Pasteur proved through a swanneckduct experiment that organisms can only be reproduced and cannot occur naturally, which provided a theoretical basis for Liszt’s idea.
So in 1865, when Liszt was a professor of medical surgery at The University of Glasgow, he first proposed that lack of disinfection was the main cause of infection after surgery. On August 12 of that year, he performed an operation on a patient with a broken leg. He chose carbolic acid as a disinfectant and implemented a series of improvement measures, including: doctors should wear white coats, surgical instruments should be treated with high temperature, doctors and nurses before the operation Hands must be washed, and the patient’s wound must be bandaged after disinfection, etc. The patient quickly healed. In 1867, he applied disinfection to blood transfusions and fluids, reducing the chance of patients suffering from sepsis.
In 1867, Liszt officially announced his own surgical disinfection method in the British medical journal "Lancet". However, the British medical community’s attitude towards Lister’s disinfection method was also cold, and many doctors even wrote articles about it. He criticized and attacked. In 1877, Liszt returned to London to serve as a professor of surgery at King's College Hospital in London, and was severely besieged by nuns. The concept of the nuns is that the life and death of man is dominated by God. Liszt and the disinfection method he vigorously promotes is actually a "demon" that violates God's will and apostasy. These conservative and backward concepts have prevented the disinfection method from being widely promoted for a long time. Until the 1890s, European surgeons often said: "Close the door, don't let Liszt's microbes come in!" Liszt did not reply to this, and continued to improve his methods.