Medical Humanities Blog


Call for Papers: Learning from Lister: Antisepsis, Safer Surgery, and Global Health

Posted: 21 Nov 2011 12:09 PM PST

Taken from the Conference website:

Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister of Lyme Regis, was Professor of Clinical Surgery at King's College London from 1877 – 1893. Having developed his methods of antiseptic surgery at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, Lister brought ideas and techniques to King's College Hospital which would prove foundational to subsequent conceptions and practice of surgery and medicine.

Lister's methods of promoting sterility of the surgical field before, during and after operation – his 'system' – evolved throughout his career and were grounded in antisepsis. They were paralleled and contested by practices which approached the problem by aiming for asepsis and cleanliness of surgical technique and environment.

In March 2012, King's College London will be hosting a major conference on Lister's life, methods and ideas, and will be examining both the significance of his techniques in their historical context, and the enduring impact that Lister has had on twentieth- and twenty-first-century medical and surgical practice. Marking the hundredth anniversary of Lister's death, the conference will be of interest to academic historians, clinical and healthcare scientists and practitioners , bioscience, health policy and management professionals, and those with an interest in Lister, Listerism and the development of antiseptic surgery.

The conference will be run in association with the Royal Society and the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, and events will take place at both of these institutions and at the King's College London Strand Campus.

Here is a link to the Call for Papers, and to the Guidance for Abstract Submissions.

(h/t Lit&Med listserv

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