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Joseph Lister is often seen as a hero of surgery, but his famous method of antisepsis was not solely his work alone. The commonly told account of the development of antisepsis displays several characteristics of whig history. This investigation will highlight these whiggish features, showing that Lister's original antiseptic technique was not without its failures and that there were other important figures who contributed to its development.
KEYWORDS Lister / Antisepsis / Whig history / Surgery
Provenance and Peer review: Unsolicited contribution; Peer reviewed; Accepted for publication August 2011.
Although Joseph Lister had a huge impact in the field of surgery with his method of antisepsis, the commonly told account of its development, where Lister is portrayed as the only important character in the story as he virtually 'single-handedly revolutionised modern surgery' (Granshaw 1992), may be an example of whig history. In this essay, the commonly told story of antisepsis will be analysed in order to identify whether it possesses any of the characteristics of whig history.
The term 'whig history' was first coined by Herbert Butterfield in his book The Whig Interpretation of History in 1931. He defines it as the tendency in many historians to write on the side of Protestants and Whigs, to praise revolutions provided they have been successful, to emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present' (Butterfield 1931). This definition provides several characteristics of whig history which will be useful in identifying the extent to which the common story of antisepsis is whiggish.
The first characteristic of whig history is the emphasis of certain principles of progress. This often leads to the omission of certain events in the story, tailoring the story to meet the intentions of the historian. It allows the historian to create an easy path from the past to the present (Butterfield 1931), showing only the elements of progress and omitting any complexities in the story, making this type of history usually very inaccurate. The second trait of whig history which will be looked for is whether there seems to be a ratification or glorification of the present. As Butterfield says, 'it is part and parcel of the whig...