On This Day in 1865: How an 11-Year-Old Boy’s Accident in Glasgow Led to the Birth of Antiseptic Surgery
How an 11-year-old’s accident in Glasgow sparked Joseph Lister’s fight against deadly infection
The Day That Changed Surgery Forever
How a young boy’s accident in Glasgow opened the door to a medical revolution
It was the summer of 1865 in Glasgow and the Royal Infirmary stood as a fortress of stone against the noise and smoke of the city. Inside its walls, life and death played out in rooms thick with the smell of sweat, sickness and despair. It was here, on 12 August, that an 11-year-old boy named James Greenlees was carried through the doors in unbearable agony.
James had fallen into the path of a passing wagon, the heavy wheel crushing his leg with a sickening crack. The damage was horrific. A compound fracture of the tibia had torn the flesh apart and left the bone exposed to the open air. His journey to hospital had been slow and jarring, each movement sending pain shooting through his young frame.
At the time, few would have expected James to keep his leg, or even his life.
The grim reality of Victorian surgery
The operating theatres of Victorian Britain were not places of comfort or safety. The smell alone was enough to turn the stomach. Floors were seldom cleaned, instruments were wiped on aprons already crusted with blood from previous patients, and surgeons moved from case to case without washing their hands. Germ theory was still a subject of debate and many within the profession dismissed the idea that invisible agents could cause disease.
For patients like James, a serious fracture almost always led to amputation. It was thought to be the quickest way to save a life, yet even then survival was far from certain. Infection killed more patients than blood loss, and recovery was a slow march through fever, delirium and the ever-present risk of sepsis.
It was into this world that Joseph Lister, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, stepped into the story.
A decision that defied convention
When James Greenlees arrived, Lister examined the boy’s injury. The standard approach would have been amputation. Instead, Lister made a decision that would shape the future of medicine. He chose to try to save the leg.
Lister had been reading the work of Louis Pasteur, whose studies in France suggested that microscopic organisms in the air were responsible for decay and disease. If this was true, then the wounds of surgical patients were not rotting from within, but were being attacked by these unseen invaders. The challenge was how to stop them.
Lister’s answer was to use carbolic acid, a substance already known for its ability to neutralise foul smells from sewage. He theorised that it might also destroy the germs that caused infection. It was a bold leap, one that many colleagues would have dismissed as unnecessary or even dangerous.
The operation
James was placed on the operating table, the harsh light falling on his injured leg. Around him the theatre was filled with students eager to watch the respected surgeon at work. Lister began by cleaning the wound with carbolic acid, the pungent fumes filling the air. The boy’s face twisted in pain as the liquid stung the torn flesh, but Lister persisted.
He then carefully set the broken bone, working with precision to align it properly. Rather than leaving the wound open to the air, as was common practice, he wrapped it in dressings soaked in the same carbolic solution. This was the heart of his experiment. If his theory was right, the dressing would prevent germs from reaching the wound, allowing it to heal without the deadly complications that so often followed.
A remarkable recovery
The days that followed were tense. In the wards of the Royal Infirmary, it was not unusual to hear the cries of patients gripped by infection, their wounds swelling and oozing until fever overtook them. Yet James’s leg remained clean and dry. There was no foul smell, no angry redness creeping along the skin. Slowly, the pain eased, and the wound began to close.
Within six weeks, James Greenlees walked out of the hospital on his own two feet. It was an outcome so rare that it caused murmurs across the surgical wards. For Lister, it was proof that his ideas had merit.
The beginning of antiseptic surgery
That day in August 1865 was more than just a successful operation. It marked the first use of antiseptic techniques in surgery, a turning point that would go on to save millions of lives.
Lister refined his methods over the years, applying carbolic acid not only to wounds but to instruments, dressings and the hands of surgeons. He developed sprays to disinfect the air around the operating table and insisted that everyone in the theatre follow strict cleanliness procedures. While many resisted his approach at first, the evidence became impossible to ignore. Mortality rates in surgical wards dropped dramatically wherever his techniques were adopted.
The medical world slowly transformed. By the end of the century, antiseptic surgery had become standard practice, laying the foundation for the sterile operating rooms we know today.
The human side of history
What makes this story remarkable is not only the science but the human element. For James Greenlees, it was the difference between life and death, between walking into adulthood or being left permanently disabled in a time when disability meant social hardship. For Lister, it was the beginning of a lifelong mission to prove that surgery could be made safer.
It is easy to forget that revolutions in medicine often begin not with grand pronouncements, but with small acts of courage. Lister could have followed the accepted wisdom and removed James’s leg. No one would have questioned it. Instead, he took a risk based on an untested idea. That willingness to challenge the norm, to see a patient as more than just another case, is what set him apart.
From Glasgow to the world
Lister’s work in Glasgow soon gained international attention. By the 1870s, his antiseptic techniques had been adopted in parts of Europe and North America. Surgeons began to view their work not as a fight against the body’s own weakness, but as a battle against infection. Operations that had once been unthinkable due to the risk of sepsis became possible.
In time, Lister’s name became synonymous with cleanliness in surgery. Hospitals that had been dreaded as places of last resort were transformed into centres of healing. And it all began with an 11-year-old boy and a surgeon willing to trust his instincts.
A legacy that endures
Today, the story of James Greenlees and Joseph Lister serves as a reminder of the importance of questioning what we think we know. In 1865, most surgeons believed infection was inevitable, a grim fact of life. Lister refused to accept that and proved the world wrong.
Every sterile scalpel, every clean dressing, every successful operation without complication owes something to that moment in Glasgow. The antiseptic principles he pioneered remain the bedrock of modern surgery, even as technology has advanced far beyond anything he could have imagined.
And yet, the essence of his achievement lies in its simplicity. Protect the wound from germs, give the body a chance to heal, and trust in science to light the way forward.
On that summer’s day, as the smell of carbolic acid drifted through the air of the Royal Infirmary, the course of medical history shifted. For James Greenlees, it meant walking again. For the rest of the world, it meant that surgery no longer had to be a gamble with death.