The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

by Lindsey Fitzharris

the two decades immediately following the popularization of anesthesia saw surgical outcomes worsen. With their newfound confidence about operating without inflicting pain, surgeons became ever more willing to take up the knife, driving up the incidences of postoperative infection and shock. Operating theaters became filthier than ever as the number of surgeries increased.

Surviving the knife was only half the battle.

Lister’s methods transformed surgery from a butchering art to a modern science, one where newly tried and tested methodologies trumped hackneyed practices. They opened up new frontiers in medicine—allowing us to delve further into the living body—and in the process they saved hundreds of thousands of lives.