What Lister’s findings has benefited society greatly?

If it were not for Lister’s findings and experiments with hand hygiene/ sterilization processes, then society would not be at the pinnacle of health and hygiene today. Lister has enabled many people to survive operations and almost eliminate the risk of infections, postoperatively. If it were not for Lister, we would not know about the importance of good hand hygiene that is strictly used today in our healthcare. Without the work of Lister, scientists would not have been able to further his knowledge and understand how germs are easily spread from one person to another due to poor hand hygiene. It is important to note that scientists and health care workers are still building upon these methods and not everyone washes their hands as well or often as they should. Infection and bacteria are still spread in health care environments due to lack of hand hygiene and sterile instruments/environments.

Alexander Fleming the founding father of antibiotics and one of the leading pioneers of microbiology. In 1921, Fleming discovered an important bacterial substance in secretions from human eyes (tears) which had a bacteria-killing compound, which he named lysozyme. Fleming continued his studies until 1928 when he was investigating the influenza virus; he noticed that the petri dish was dotted with colonies and mold had accidentally developed. Fleming had been growing staphylococcus culture as part of his studies. He observed that the mold had formed a bacteria-free ring around itself as a defense mechanism. He noted that this mold secreted something that inhibited bacterial growth.