quality:correction
1855 Beginning of inflammation research

In a letter dated 16 September 1855, Lister recorded the beginnings of his research into inflammation, six weeks before his lectures were to begin. Inflammation was the subject that would preoccupy him for the rest of his life. Later in life, Lister stated that he considered his research into the nature of inflammation to be an "essential preliminary" to his conception of the antiseptic principle and insisted these early findings be included in any memorial volume of his work. In 1905, when he was seventy-eight years old, he wrote,

If my works are read when I am gone, these will be the ones most highly thought of

Inflammation is defined by four symptoms, heat, redness, swelling and pain. For surgeons prior to Lister, this meant the arrival of suppuration or putrefaction, meaning local or general infection. As the germ theory of disease had not been discovered, infection as a concept did not exist. However, Lister knew that the phenomena of the slowing of the blood through the capillaries seemed to precede inflammation. Joseph Jackson Lister had written a paper with Thomas Hodgkin that described how blood cells behaved prior to a clot, i.e. specifically how the concave cells fitted themselves together into stacks. Lister knew that to observe the next step, it was important that the tissue remain alive so the blood vessels could be observed through the microscope.

In September 1855, Lister's first experiment was on the artery of a frog viewed under his microscope, which was subjected to a water droplet of differing temperatures, to determine the early stage of inflammation. He initially applied a water droplet at 80 °F (27 °C) which caused the artery to contract for a second and the flow ceased, then dilated and the area turned red and the flow of blood increased. He progressively increased the temperature until it was 200 °F (93 °C). The blood slowed down and then coagulated. He continued the experiment on the wing of chloroformed bat to widen his research focus. Lister concluded that the contraction of the vessels led to the exclusion of blood cells from the capillaries, not their arrest and blood serum continued to flow. This was his first independent discovery.

The experiments ceased between October 1855 and continued in September 1856 when the couple moved into Rutland Square. Lister started with mustard as an irritant, then Croton oil, acetic acid, oil of Cantharidin and chloroform and many others. They led to the production of three papers. His first paper grew out of the need to prepare for these extramural lectures and had begun the year before, continuing in development for six weeks, after he moved into Rutland Street. The early paper titled: "On the early stages of inflammation as observed in the Foot of a Frog" was read to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on 5 December 1856. The last third was read out extempore.