This paper focuses on Lister’s inaugural lecture at King’s College, London, in October 1877. As the new Professor of Clinical Surgery, Lister had much to report, including impressively high survival rates from complex operations previously regarded as foolhardy. Instead, he chose to address the processes of fermentation in wine, blood and milk. His reasons are not obvious to a modern audience, ...

The truth of the statement that the vermiform appendix is a totally intra-peritoneal structure appears to have been satisfactorily demonstrated. There are, however, numerous published statistics which appear to show that a portion of the appendix may be uncovered by peritoneum in a natural state of the parts. Fowler writes: "The completeness with which this [the peritoneum] covers the organ var...