ABSTRACT
On August 12, 1865, an operation was performed that was to be the watershed between two eras of surgery, the primitive and the modern. There was none of the glamour and ritual of the modern operating theatre – no steely eyes gleaming over white masks, no clink of chromium against chromium, no rhythmic purring of elaborate anaesthetic equipment. It was indeed simply the dressing and splintage of a compound fracture. Joseph Lister performed an open reduction of a fractured patella, daring to open the intact knee joint and wire the two fragments together; the wound healed. Success followed success as the new antiseptic method became firmly established. Lister believed that bacteria-free ligatures might be left safely within the wound, and in 1867, he tied the carotid artery of a horse with a piece of silk soaked in carbolic acid.
