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Roy LichtensteinAmerican artist
Date of Birth: 27.10.1923
Country:  USA |
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Biography of Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was an American artist born on April 5, 1827 in Apton, near London. He completed his education at University College in London and obtained a medical degree in 1852. Lichtenstein worked as an assistant to the renowned surgeon Professor J. Syme in his clinic in Edinburgh. In 1858, he became a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and also started lecturing at the university. In 1860, Lichtenstein was appointed as a professor of surgery at the University of Glasgow. In 1869, he moved to a surgical clinic in Edinburgh and in 1877, he was invited to the Royal Hospital in London.
Contributions to Surgical Antisepsis
Lichtenstein became interested in the problem of postoperative infections while studying samples of gangrenous tissue under a microscope as a student. Contrary to the prevailing belief at the time that surgical infections were caused by miasmas present in hospital air, Lichtenstein hypothesized that they were caused by "living agents" introduced into the wound from outside. He published his ideas in his first scientific publication, "An Essay on the Early Stages of Inflammation" in 1857. Drawing on Louis Pasteur's ideas of the impossibility of "self-infection" and his findings that microbes caused putrefaction, Lichtenstein developed scientifically sound measures to combat wound infections. He used carbolic acid, a chemical bactericide, to kill microbes, focusing on destroying them on objects in contact with the wound and in the operating room air. In 1867, Lichtenstein published the article "On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery." After the implementation of his system, surgical infections became rare and the safety of operations significantly increased. In 1883, Lichtenstein was granted the title of baronet, and in 1897, he became a baron. He was entrusted with performing surgery on Queen Victoria.
