Initially, his antiseptic system received more support on the Continent than it did in Britain, so much so that in 1870 Lister was asked by both the French and the Germans to furnish some guidelines for treating wounded soldiers fighting in the Franco-Prussian War. As a consequence, the German physician Richard von Volkmann became a spirited devotee after his hospital at Halle—overcrowded with wounded soldiers from the war and so dreadfully overcome with infection that its closure was imminent—achieved astonishing results by employing Lister’s methods. Following this, Lister’s system was taken
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