Kilmer House

Surgery before it was sterile, with the surgeons in street clothing, and a complete lack of aseptic procedures. Although it seems hard to believe today, as recently as the late 1800s the concept that surgery should be sterile was still facing an uphill battle.  Some people found it hard to believe that invisible “germs” (as they were called) were causing the high rates of post-surgical infections.  Others (some surgeons included) still believed that infections weren’t caused by germs at all, which inclined them to view sterile surgery as an unnecessary affectation.  Surgeons who did want to tr

Sir Joseph Lister, from our archives This February marks the 100th anniversary of the passing of Sir Joseph Lister.  The father of modern antiseptic surgery, he was also the inspiration behind the founding of Johnson & Johnson.  It was Lister’s lecture at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition that led medicinal plaster maker Robert Wood Johnson and his brothers to start a company to make the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures and actively promote the adoption of sterile surgery.  Today, non-sterile surgery would be unthinkable, but it wasn’t all that l

Fads and Cranks Wanted. If believers in antiseptic surgery were “fads and cranks” in 1897, then they were just the people Johnson & Johnson was looking for! In July of 1897, Fred Kilmer noted that “A leading drug journal recently treated editorially the whole practice of aseptic and antiseptic wound treatment as " ‘a fad, practiced by cranks.’ ” “We may excuse the editor’s ignorance,” Kilmer wrote, and went on to explain: “The simple and seemingly endless details that make up an aseptic technique seem fussy to those who stand without, but go into any hospital clinic or operating room, witn

Today we take pristine white cotton swabs, cotton balls and sterile cotton dressings for granted, but over 125 years ago it was a very different story.  Cotton in the 1800s was not very useful as a dressing, and you wouldn’t have wanted to use it as a personal care item.  The natural oils in the plant fibers made it non-absorbent and it was, as Fred Kilmer described it, (you may want to put down your coffee while reading this one)  “…yellow and dirty...it was put up in wads, packed in any sort of a box or wrapped in loose paper.”   [RED CROSS® Notes, Series II, No. 9, 1899.  Published by John

A recent column commemorating Sir Joseph Lister’s April 5th birthday opened with this startling statement:  “Joseph Lister, who was born this week (April 5) in 1827, was an amazing physician but a poor salesman.”  [“Lister's Life Saving Discovery, by Bruce Kauffmann, Telegraph Herald, Dubuque, IA and the Appeal-Democrat in Marysville, CA]  It may have taken some time to inspire skeptical surgeons in the late 1800s, but Lister did inspire two people who were very good at spreading the word, and they took up the cause of making surgery sterile:  Robert Wood Johnson and Fred Kilmer. Robert Wood