Robert Lawson Tait (1845–1899): The true innovator of aseptic surgery?

Abstract

Robert Lawson Tait was an original thinker, a surgical innovator, a controversialist and an iconoclast. He made important contributions to surgery, was an eloquent supporter of Darwinian evolution and women in medicine and opposed vivisection. He is probably best remembered for his high-profile opposition to Listerian antisepsis which continued until his death. While Lister went on to receive the country's highest honours and was lauded throughout the world, Tait received much more modest honours and little subsequent recognition by historians. Yet it could be argued that Tait's system rather than Lister's was the basis of modern aseptic surgery. Tait never changed his views on asepsis over his lifetime and relied on surgical cleanliness, which, combined with his extensive clinical experience, enabled him to achieve outcomes as good or better than with antisepsis. By contrast, Listerism evolved over 30 years, claimed to be based on laboratory data and adopted the new discoveries of the germ theory of disease as they emerged. We compare the systems of Tait and Lister, explore the basis of Tait's opposition to Listerian methods and conclude that Tait's thinking underlies modern surgical practice and that he should receive greater acknowledgement for his contribution to the prevention of surgical infections.