Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine, dated The systematic use of antiseptics in operations and the treatment of wounds.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Lister +‎ -ism, after Joseph Lister.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word Listerism.

Examples

  • The most distinguished of them, Sir James Paget, openly expressed remorse for his reluctance to accept the antiseptic principle earlier, and compared his own record of failures with the successes attained by his colleague at St. Bartholomew's Thomas Smith, the one eminent London surgeon who had given Listerism a thorough trial.

    Victorian Worthies Sixteen Biographies George Henry Blore

  • One more point must be considered before pronouncing Listerism to be superseded.

    Victorian Worthies Sixteen Biographies George Henry Blore

  • The controversy over spontaneous generation, which, thanks to Pasteur and Tyndall, had just been brought to a termination, made it clear that no bacterium need be feared where an antecedent bacterium had not found lodgment; Listerism in surgery had now shown how much might be accomplished towards preventing the access of germs to abraded surfaces of the body and destroying those that already had found lodgment there.

    A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume IV: Modern Development of the Chemical and Biological Sciences 1904

  • November 5 “Causation and Cleanliness: George W. Callender and the Debates over Listerism

    Speaking Science 2.0–tonight 2007

  • November 5 “Causation and Cleanliness: George W. Callender and the Debates over Listerism

    HST and HMed Lectures, University of Minnesota 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.