Science Sunday!
Here’s something a little off the beaten path for you: “The Story of Dr. Lister”, a 1963 dramatization from Warner-Lambert Pharmaceuticals, about the life of Dr. Joseph Lister.
For those of you who aren’t big medical history buffs, Dr. Lister was one of the pioneers of antiseptic surgery.
Lister promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid (now known as phenol) to sterilise surgical instruments and to clean wounds.
Applying Louis Pasteur’s advances in microbiology, Lister championed the use of carbolic acid as an antiseptic, so that it became the first widely used antiseptic in surgery. He first suspected it would prove an adequate disinfectant because it was used to ease the stench from fields irrigated with sewage waste. He presumed it was safe because fields treated with carbolic acid produced no apparent ill-effects on the livestock that later grazed upon them.
Bonus: I spent some time trying to find a decent video about Ignaz Semmelweis, but couldn’t. So for a change of pace, please enjoy an Army Air Corps video from 1944 on what is rapidly becoming a lost art: “Celestial Navigation”.
(Yes, even though this is a military training film, I do think understanding the relationship of celestial objects to one’s position on the Earth does count as science.)