Lister paid tribute to the French scientist during his address. In his typically humble way, he downplayed his own role in the transformation of surgery. Instead, Lister credited Pasteur with “raising the dark curtain” in medicine. “You have changed Surgery … from being a hazardous lottery into a safe and soundly-based science,” he said of Pasteur. “You are the leader of the modern generation of scientific surgeons, and every wise and good man in our profession—especially in Scotland—looks up to you with respect and attachment as few men receive.
