16. Instead of being a warning sign of infection, pus was seen as a good thing and proof that a wound was healing.
Victorian-era hospitals were smelly, messy places. And that’s an understatement. Strangely enough, the surgeons themselves reveled in the conditions. It wasn’t just blood they loved to see, however. According to the wisdom of the time, pus was also a welcome sight. That is, seeping wounds were seen as healthy, a sure sign that they were healing. As Robert Liston, one of England’s most famous surgeons of the 19th century, noted “pus was as inseparable from surgery as blood”.
Of course, these days, you don’t need a medical degree to know that pus is a sure-fire sign of infection. Back in the 19th century, however, some surgeons referred to it as the “laudable pus” and would regard a seeping wound with approval, confident that they had done a good job. Far from being a sign that a surgical wound was healing, however, this was an unmistakable sign of infection. This ignorance was the reason why so many patients died and continued to die even after medical pioneers like Joseph Lister started to warn about the mortal dangers of infections.