On 12 August 1865, rather than cutting off the leg, he sprayed the wound with a corrosive liquid, carbolic acid. This experimental treatment proved successful, James’s life and his leg were saved, Lister was made a lord, and antisepsis – the use of antiseptics to treat wounds – was born. No one asked whether the manner of this discovery was justifiable. It was apparently quite normal to experiment on children. Peter Stuyvesant’s defeat was a fiasco. The Spaniards
