Ask the Readers: A History Conundrum

Yesterday, at the end of the post,  I asked readers to find one event that happened on that day, and post it in the comments. One of them, the only one that posted actually, came across an interesting problem. My friend Julie writes:

I’ve been enjoying your blog, and wanted to find an event that happened today (that hadn’t been posted by EiH yet;)). Researching took me down something of a rabbit hole, however. I discovered an interesting fact: August 15 (1865) is considered the day Sir Joseph Lister “discovered” the antiseptic process for surgery, and reduced post-surgical mortality from 50% to 15%. Pretty darn important! (In fact the mouthwash Listerine and the bacteria Listeria are named for him). However, what does it mean to “discover” such a process on a particular day? I couldn’t find an answer. Rather, Lister underwent his first antiseptic surgery procedure on Aug. 12 of that year (using carbolic acid to sterilize wounds, hands and instruments).
So I questioned August 15th, and looked to the source of that date and information. I was continually led back to “The Associated Press.” Interesting.
Maybe there really IS some correlation to today’s date and the “discovery” of antiseptic surgery. But what if there isn’t? What if the guy or gal writing today’s factoids for the AP, about to be published in newspapers around the world, was a few days off? What if THEIR source was a few days off? And furthermore…..does it even matter?

Julie brings up some very valid points. One thing to consider when dealing with the invention/discovery of processes, is that others have probably used the process, but the person we know is the one that gets the credit. Lister could have watched a farmer disinfecting in order to save his animals, which would then save him money, then Lister ran with it and used it on people. Maybe Lister *discovered* his process on the 15th because his patient actually survived for three days. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because the important part is that surgical mortality dropped, and has led to the technological advances that we have today. I personally enjoy on this day factoids because it shows us how far we’ve come. But that’s just my opinion. Tell us in the comments, what do you think? Do you care?

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