Joseph Lister began using carbolic acid as an antiseptic agent in all his surgical procedures, not just as a post-operative dressing. He had previously used this method on a child with an open leg fracture—a highly feared case at the time. He carefully cleaned the bone and the patient’s area with gauze soaked in carbolic acid. He then prepared a dressing using carbolic acid-soaked cloths, covered with a metal sheet shaped to prevent evaporation of the acid. The dressing was bandaged. A scab formed, and the wound healed without infection. Coal tar, from which Lister obtained carbolic acid, was readily available as a waste product from gas-lamp lighting in urban streets. Lister later succeeded in obtaining the main component of carbolic acid, phenol, in its pure form of white crystals. By 1878, Lister’s antiseptic surgery techniques were in use throughout the world.
