Joseph ListerJoseph Lister was a British physician who introduced antiseptics into surgery in 1867. He started using carbolic acid dressings in his own surgery work and so cut down the incidence of sepsis which had been shown by Louis Pasteur to be caused by germs. Three years later he claimed that death from surgery had dropped from over 40% to under 15%.He also replaced the original silk thread which was used to stitch wounds with cat gut. The cat gut could be sterilised and was readily absorb