5. Surgeons would often fight among themselves, with many violently opposed to the idea that they should wash their hands!
As if being a patient in the 19th century wasn’t bad enough, Victorian hospitals were often run by egocentrics, with fighting among vain surgeons commonplace. And, as the century progressed, one topic divided opinion more than any other: that of germ theory. In the UK, the main proponent of antiseptic surgery – which included calling for surgeons to ‘scrub up’ – was Dr. Joseph Lister. Working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland, he demanded that his colleagues use carbolic acid to sterilize their equipment and to clean wounds so as to reduce the hospital’s shockingly-high mortality rates.
Unsurprisingly, many of his fellow surgeons didn’t like being told what to do. Dr. Lister made many workplace enemies – and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that this professional difference of opinion cost patients’ lives. For instance, the American surgeon, Dr. Samuel Gross, was one of Lister’s fiercest critics and would deliberately ignore the Scot’s advice. The records show he would simply close the door of his operating theater and declare: “There! Mr. Lister’s germs can’t get in anymore.” Then, as one famous painting shows, he would perform surgery while still wearing his dirty street clothes and would stick his unwashed hands into open wounds.
