Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

Liskeard (Liscarret) was at the time of the Domesday Survey an important manor with a mill rendering 12d. yearly and a market rendering 4s. By the Conqueror it had been given to the count of Mortain by whom it was held in demesne. Ever since that time it has passed with the earldom or duchy of Cornwall. The fertility of its soil and the river Looe probably led to early settlement at Liskeard. Richard, king of the Romans, recognized its natural advantages and built the manor house or castle and resided there occasionally. In 1240 he constituted Liskeard a free borough and its burgesses freemen with all the liberties enjoyed by the burgesses of Launceston and Helston. In 1266 he granted fairs at the Feasts of the Assumption and St Matthew. His son Edmund earl of Cornwall in 1275 granted to the burgesses for a yearly rent of £18 (sold by William III. to Lord Somers) the borough in fee farm with its mills, tolls, fines and pleas, pleas of the crown excepted. Liskeard was made a coinage town for tin in 1304. Edward the Black Prince secured to the burgesses in 1355 immunity from pleas outside their franchise for trespass done within the borough. Queen Elizabeth granted a charter of incorporation in 1580 under which there were to be a mayor, recorder and eight councillors. This charter was surrendered to Charles II. in 1680 and a new one granted by his brother under which the corporation became a self-elected body. From 1295 to 1832 Liskeard sent two members to the House of Commons. The parliamentary franchise, at first exercised by the burgesses, was vested by James' charter in the corporation and freemen. By determining to admit no new freemen the voters became reduced to between 30 and 60. Sir Edward Coke was returned for this borough in 1620, and Edward Gibbon the historian in 1774. In 1832 Liskeard was deprived of one of its members and in 1885 it became merged in the county.

Besides the fairs already mentioned a third was added by Elizabeth's
charter to be held on Ascension Day. These are still among the most
considerable cattle fairs in the county. The same charter ratified a
market on Mondays and provided for another on Saturdays. The latter is
now held weekly, the former twice a month. The flour mill at Lamellion
mentioned in the charter of 1275, and probably identical with the mill
of the Domesday Survey, is still driven by water.

LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685), commonly known as Lady Alice Lisle, was born about 1614. Her father, Sir White Beckenshaw, was descended from an old Hampshire family; her husband, John Lisle (d. 1664), had been one of the judges at the trial of Charles I., and was subsequently a member of Cromwell's House of Lords--hence his wife's courtesy title. Lady Lisle seems to have leaned to Royalism, but with this attitude she combined a decided sympathy with religious dissent. On the 20th of July 1685, a fortnight after the battle of Sedgemoor, the old lady consented to shelter John Hickes, a well-known Nonconformist minister, at her residence, Moyles Court, near Ringwood. Hickes, who was a fugitive from Monmouth's army, brought with him Richard Nelthorpe, also a partizan of Monmouth, and under sentence of outlawry. The two men passed the night at Moyles Court, and on the following morning were arrested, and their hostess, who had denied their presence in the house, was charged with harbouring traitors. Her case was tried by Judge Jeffreys at the opening of the "Bloody Assizes" at Winchester. She pleaded that she had no knowledge that Hickes's offence was anything more serious than illegal preaching, that she had known nothing previously of Nelthorpe (whose name was not included in the indictment, but was, nevertheless, mentioned to strengthen the case for the Crown), and that she had no sympathy with the rebellion. The jury reluctantly found her guilty, and, the law recognizing no distinction between principals and accessories in treason, she was sentenced to be burned. Jeffreys ordered that the sentence should be carried out that same afternoon, but a few days' respite was subsequently granted, and James II. allowed beheading to be substituted for burning. Lady Lisle was executed in Winchester market-place on the 2nd of September 1685. By many writers her death has been termed a judicial murder, and one of the first acts of parliament of William and Mary reversed the attainder on the ground that the prosecution was irregular and the verdict injuriously extorted by "the menaces and violences and other illegal practices" of Jeffreys. It is, however, extremely doubtful whether Jeffreys, for all his gross brutality, exceeded the strict letter of the existing law.

See Howell, _State Trials_; H. B. Irving, _Life of Judge Jeffreys_;
Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_.

LISMORE, an island in the entrance to Loch Linnhe, Argyllshire, Scotland, 5 m. N.W. of Oban. Pop. (1901) 500. It lies S.W. and N.E., is 9½ m. long and 1¾ m. broad, and has an area of 9600 acres. It divides the lower end of the loch into two channels, the Lynn of Morvern on the W. and the Lynn of Lome on the E. The name is derived from the Gaelic _lios mòr_, "great garden." Several ruined castles stand on the coast, and the highest point of the island is 500 ft. above the sea. The inhabitants raise potatoes, oats, cattle and horses, and these, with dairy produce, form the bulk of the trade. Steamers call at Auchnacrosan. A Columban monastery was founded in Lismore by St Moluag about 592. About 1200 the see of Argyll was separated from Dunkeld by Bishop John, "the Englishman," and Lismore soon afterwards became the seat of the bishop of Argyll, sometimes called "Episcopus Lismoriensis," quite distinct from the bishop of the Isles (Sudreys and Isle of Man), called "Episcopus Sodoriensis" or "Insularum," whose see was divided in the 14th century into the English bishopric of Sodor and Man and the Scottish bishopric of the Isles. The Rev. John Macaulay (d. 1789), grandfather of Lord Macaulay, the historian, and the Rev. Donald M'Nicol (1735-1802), who took up the defence of the Highlands against Dr Johnson, were ministers of Lismore.

For the _Book of the Dean of Lismore_ see CELT: _Scottish Gaelic
Literature_.

LISMORE, a town of Rous county, New South Wales, Australia, 320 m. direct N. by E. of Sydney. Pop. (1901) 4378. It is the principal town of the north coast district, and the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. The surrounding country is partly pastoral, and partly agricultural, the soil being very fertile. The town has a cathedral, school of art, and other public buildings, while its industrial establishments include saw-mills, sugar-mills, butter factories and an iron foundry. Standing at the head of navigation of the Richmond river, Lismore has a large export trade in dairy produce, poultry, pigs, and pine and cedar timber.

LISMORE, a market town and seat of a diocese in Co. Waterford, Ireland, 43 m. W.S.W. of Waterford by the Waterford and Mallow branch of the Great Southern & Western Railway. Pop. (1901) 1583. It is beautifully situated on a steep eminence rising abruptly from the Blackwater. At the verge of the rock on the western side is the old baronial castle, erected by King John in 1185, which was the residence of the bishops till the 14th century. It was besieged in 1641 and 1643, and in 1645 it was partly destroyed by fire. The present fabric is largely modern; while the portico was designed by Inigo Jones. To the east, on the summit of the height, is the cathedral of St Carthagh, of various dates. There are portions probably of the 12th and 13th centuries, but the bulk of the building is of the 17th century, and considerable additions, including the tower and spire, were made in the 19th. There are a grammar school, a free school and a number of charities. Some trade is carried on by means of the river, and the town is the centre of a salmon fishery district.

The original name of Lismore was Maghsciath. A monastery founded here by St Carthagh in 633 became so celebrated as a seat of learning that it is said no fewer than twenty churches were erected in its vicinity. The bishopric, which is said to have originated with this foundation, was united to that of Waterford in 1363. In the 9th and beginning of the 10th centuries the town was repeatedly plundered by the Danes, and in 978 the town and abbey were burned by the men of Ossory. Henry II., after landing at Waterford, received in Lismore castle the allegiance of the archbishops and bishops of Ireland. In 1518 the manor was granted to Sir Walter Raleigh, from whom it passed to Sir Richard Boyle, afterwards earl of Cork. From the earls of Cork it descended by marriage to the dukes of Devonshire. It was incorporated as a municipal borough in the time of Charles I., when it also received the privilege of returning members to parliament, but at the Union in 1800 it was disfranchised and also ceased to exercise its municipal functions.

LISSA (Serbo-Croation _Vis_; Lat. _Issa_), an island in the Adriatic sea, forming part of Dalmatia, Austria. Lissa lies 31 m. S. by W. of Spalato, and is the outermost island of the Dalmatian Archipelago. Its greatest length is 10½ m.; its greatest breadth 4½ m. In shape it is a long, roughly drawn parallelogram, surrounded by a wall of rock, which incloses the fertile central plain, and is broken, on the north, west and east by natural harbours. Its culminating point is Mount Hum (1942 ft.), on the south-west. The island, which belongs to the administrative district of Lesina, is divided between two communes, named after the chief towns, Lissa (_Vis_), on the north, and Comisa (_Komia_), on the west. Lissa, the capital, has a strongly fortified harbour. It contains the palace of the old Venetian counts Gariboldi, the former residence of the English governor, the monastery of the Minorites and at a little distance to the west the ruins of the ancient city of Issa. The islanders gain their livelihood by viticulture, for which Issa was once famous, by sardine fishing and by the distillation of rosemary oil. Pop. (1900) 9918, of whom 5261 belonged to the town and commune of Lissa, and 4657 to Comisa.

Issa is said to have been settled by people from Lesbos, the Issa of the Aegean. The Parians, assisted by Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, introduced a colony in the 4th century B.C. During the First Punic War (265-241 B.C.) the Issaeans with their beaked ships helped the Roman Duilius; and the great republic, having defended their island against the attacks of Agron of Illyria and his queen Teuta, again found them serviceable allies in the war with Philip of Macedon (c. 215-211). As early as 996 the Venetians ruled the island, and, though they retired for a time before the Ragusans, their power was effectually established in 1278. Velo Selo, then the chief settlement, was destroyed by Ferdinand of Naples in 1483 and by the Turks in 1571. The present city arose shortly afterwards. During the Napoleonic wars, the French held Lissa until 1811, and during this period the island prospered greatly, its population increasing from 4000 to 12,000 between 1808 and 1811. In the latter year the French squadron was defeated by the British (see below); though in the same year a French fleet, flying British colours, entered Lissa, and only retired after burning 64 merchantmen. Thenceforward the island gained a valuable trade in British goods, which, being excluded from every port under French control, were smuggled into Dalmatia. In 1812 the British established an administrative system, under native officials, in Lissa and the adjoining islands of Curzola and Lagosta. All three were ceded to Austria in 1815.

_Battles of Lissa._--Two naval actions have been fought in modern times near this island. The first took place on the 13th of March 1811, and was fought between a Franco-Venetian squadron, under the command of an officer named Dubourdieu (of whom little or nothing else is known), and Captain (afterwards Sir) William Hoste with a small British force. The Franco-Venetian squadron (Venice was then part of the dominions of the emperor Napoleon) consisted of six frigates, of which four were of forty guns, and of five corvettes or small craft. The British squadron was composed of three frigates, the "Amphion," 32 (Captain William Hoste), the "Cerberus" (Captain Henry Whitby) and the "Active," 38 (Captain James A. Gordon). With them was the "Volage," 22 (Captain Phipps Hornby). The action has a peculiar interest because the French captain imitated the method of attack employed by Nelson at Trafalgar. He came down from windward in two lines parallel to one another, and at an angle to the British squadron. Captain Hoste was not compelled to lie still as the allies did at Trafalgar. He stood on, and as the two French lines had to overtake him as he slipped away at an angle to their course, one of them got in the way of the other. Captain Hoste materially forwarded the success of his manoeuvre by leading the foremost French ship, the "Favorite," 40, on to a reef, which was known to himself, but not to the enemy. Both squadrons then turned, and the Franco-Venetians falling into great confusion were defeated in spite of the gallant fighting of the individual ships. Two prizes were taken and Dubourdieu was killed.

The second naval battle of Lissa was fought between the Austrian and Italian navies on the 20th of July 1866. The island, then in possession of the Austrians, was attacked by an Italian squadron from Ancona of 12 ironclads and 22 wooden vessels. One of the ironclads was damaged in a bombardment of the forts, and two were detached on other service, when an Austrian squadron of 7 ironclads, one unarmoured warship the "Kaiser" and a number of small craft which had left Fasano under the command of Admiral Tegethoff came to interrupt their operations. The Italian admiral Persano arranged his ships in a single long line ahead, which allowing for the necessary space between them meant that the Italian formation stretched for more than 2 m. Just before the action began Admiral Persano shifted his flag from the "Ré d'Italia," the fourth ship in order from the van, to the ram "Affondatore," the fifth. This made it necessary for the "Affondatore" and the ships astern to shorten speed, and, as the leading vessels stood on, a gap was created in the Italian line. Admiral Tegethoff, who was on the port bow of the Italians, attacked with his squadron in three divisions formed in obtuse angles. The Italians opened a very rapid and ill-directed fire at a distance of 1000 yds. The Austrians did not reply till they were at a distance of 300 yds. Under Tegethoff's vigorous leadership, and aided by the disorder in the Italian line, the Austrians brought on a brief, but to the Italians destructive, mêlée. They broke through an interval between the third and fourth Italian ships. The unarmed Austrian ships headed to attack the unarmed Italians in the rear. At this point an incident occurred to which an exaggerated importance was given. The Italian ironclad "Ré di Portogallo" of 5600 tons, in the rear of the line, stood out to cover the unarmoured squadron by ramming the Austrians. She was herself rammed by the wooden "Kaiser" (5000 tons), but received little injury, while the Austrian was much injured. The "Kaiser" and the wooden vessels then made for the protection of fort San Giorgio on Lissa unpursued. In the centre, where the action was hottest, the Austrian flagship "Ferdinand Max" of 5200 tons rammed and sank the "Ré d'Italia." The Italian "Palestro" of 2000 tons was fired by a shell and blew up. By midday the Italians were in retreat, and Tegethoff anchored at San Giorgio. His squadron had suffered very little from the wild fire of the Italians. The battle of the 20th July was the first fought at sea by modern ironclad steam fleets, and therefore attracted a great deal of attention. The sinking of the "Ré d'Italia" and the ramming of the "Portogallo" by the "Kaiser" gave an immense impulse to the then popular theory that the ram would be a leading, if not the principal, weapon in modern sea warfare. This calculation has not been borne out by more recent experience, and indeed was not justified by the battle itself, in which the attempts to ram were many and the successes very few. The "Ré d'Italia" was struck only because she was suddenly and most injudiciously backed, so that she had no way on when charged by the "Ferdinand Max."

For the first battle of Lissa see James's _Naval History_, vol. v.
(1837). A clear account of the second battle will be found in Sir S.
Eardley-Wilmot's _Development of Navies_ (London, 1892); see also H.
W. Wilson's _Ironclads in Action_ (London, 1896). (D. H.)

LISSA (Polish _Lézno_), a town in the Prussian province of Posen, 25 m. N.E. from Glogau by rail and at the junction of lines to Breslau, Posen and Landsberg. Pop. (1905) 16,021. The chief buildings are the handsome palace, the medieval town-hall, the four churches and the synagogue. Its manufactures consist chiefly of shoes, machinery, liqueurs and tobacco; it also possesses a large steam flour-mill, and carries on a brisk trade in grain and cattle.

Lissa owes its rise to a number of Moravian Brothers who were banished from Bohemia by the emperor Ferdinand I. in the 16th century and found a refuge in a village on the estate of the Polish family of Leszczynski. Their settlement received municipal rights in 1561. During the Thirty Years' War the population was reinforced by other refugees, and Lissa became an important commercial town and the chief seat of the Moravian Brothers in Poland. Johann Amos Comenius was long rector of the celebrated Moravian school here. In 1656 and 1707 Lissa was burned down.

See Voigt, _Aus Lissas erster Blütezeit_ (Lissa, 1905), and Sanden,
_Geschichte der Lissaer Schule_ (Lissa, 1905).

LIST, FRIEDRICH (1789-1846), German economist, was born at Reutlingen, Württemberg, on the 6th of August 1789. Unwilling to follow the occupation of his father, who was a prosperous tanner, he became a clerk in the public service, and by 1816 had risen to the post of ministerial under-secretary. In 1817 he was appointed professor of administration and politics at the university of Tübingen, but the fall of the ministry in 1819 compelled him to resign. As a deputy to the Württemberg chamber, he was active in advocating administrative reforms. He was eventually expelled from the chamber and in April 1822 sentenced to ten months' imprisonment with hard labour in the fortress of Asperg. He escaped to Alsace, and after visiting France and England returned in 1824 to finish his sentence, and was released on undertaking to emigrate to America. There he resided from 1825 to 1832, first engaging in farming and afterwards in journalism. It was in America that he gathered from a study of Alexander Hamilton's work the inspiration which made him an economist of his pronounced "National" views. The discovery of coal on some land which he had acquired made him financially independent, and he became United States consul at Leipzig in 1832. He strongly advocated the extension of the railway system in Germany, and the establishment of the _Zollverein_ was due largely to his enthusiasm and ardour. His latter days were darkened by many misfortunes; he lost much of his American property in a financial crisis, ill-health also overtook him, and he brought his life to an end by his own hand on the 30th of November 1846.

List holds historically one of the highest places in economic thought as applied to practical objects. His principal work is entitled _Das Nationale System der Politischen Ökonomie_ (1841). Though his practical conclusions were different from those of Adam Müller (1779-1829), he was largely influenced not only by Hamilton but also by the general mode of thinking of that writer, and by his strictures on the doctrine of Adam Smith. It was particularly against the cosmopolitan principle in the modern economical system that he protested, and against the absolute doctrine of free trade, which was in harmony with that principle. He gave prominence to the national idea, and insisted on the special requirements of each nation according to its circumstances and especially to the degree of its development.

He refused to Smith's system the title of the industrial, which he
thought more appropriate to the mercantile system, and designated the
former as "the exchange-value system." He denied the parallelism
asserted by Smith between the economic conduct proper to an individual
and to a nation, and held that the immediate private interest of the
separate members of the community would not lead to the highest good
of the whole. That the nation was an existence, standing between the
individual and humanity, and formed into a unity by its language,
manners, historical development, culture and constitution. That this
unity must be the first condition of the security, wellbeing, progress
and civilization of the individual; and private economic interests,
like all others, must be subordinated to the maintenance, completion
and strengthening of the nationality. The nation having a continuous
life, its true wealth must consist--and this is List's fundamental
doctrine--not in the quantity of exchange-values which it possesses,
but in the full and many-sided development of its productive powers.
Its economic education should be more important than the immediate
production of values, and it might be right that one generation should
sacrifice its gain and enjoyment to secure the strength and skill of
the future. In the sound and normal condition of a nation which has
attained economic maturity, the three productive powers of
agriculture, manufactures and commerce should be alike developed. But
the two latter factors are superior in importance, as exercising a
more effective and fruitful influence on the whole culture of the
nation, as well as on its independence. Navigation, railways, all
higher technical arts, connect themselves specially with these
factors; whilst in a purely agricultural state there is a tendency to
stagnation. But for the growth of the higher forms of industry all
countries are not adapted--only those of the temperate zones, whilst
the torrid regions have a natural monopoly in the production of
certain raw materials; and thus between these two groups of countries
a division of labour and confederation of powers spontaneously takes
place.

List then goes on to explain his theory of the stages of economic
development through which the nations of the temperate zone, which are
furnished with all the necessary conditions, naturally pass, in
advancing to their normal economic state. These are (1) pastoral life,
(2) agriculture, (3) agriculture united with manufactures; whilst in
the final stage agriculture, manufactures and commerce are combined.
The economic task of the state is to bring into existence through
legislative and administrative action the conditions required for the
progress of the nation through these stages. Out of this view arises
List's scheme of industrial politics. Every nation, according to him,
should begin with free trade, stimulating and improving its
agriculture by intercourse with richer and more cultivated nations,
importing foreign manufactures and exporting raw products. When it is
economically so far advanced that it can manufacture for itself, then
a system of protection should be employed to allow the home industries
to develop themselves fully, and save them from being overpowered in
their earlier efforts by the competition of more matured foreign
industries in the home market. When the national industries have grown
strong enough no longer to dread this competition, then the highest
stage of progress has been reached; free trade should again become the
rule, and the nation be thus thoroughly incorporated with the
universal industrial union. What a nation loses for a time in exchange
values during the protective period she much more than gains in the
long run in productive power--the temporary expenditure being strictly
analogous, when we place ourselves at the point of view of the life of
the nation, to the cost of the industrial education of the
individual. The practical conclusion which List drew for Germany was
that she needed for her economic progress an extended and conveniently
bounded territory reaching to the sea-coast both on north and south,
and a vigorous expansion of manufactures and commerce, and that the
way to the latter lay through judicious protective legislation with a
customs union comprising all German lands, and a German marine with a
Navigation Act. The national German spirit, striving after
independence and power through union, and the national industry,
awaking from its lethargy and eager to recover lost ground, were
favourable to the success of List's book, and it produced a great
sensation. He ably represented the tendencies and demands of his time
in his own country; his work had the effect of fixing the attention,
not merely of the speculative and official classes, but of practical
men generally, on questions of political economy; and his ideas were
undoubtedly the economic foundation of modern Germany, as applied by
the practical genius of Bismarck.

See biographies of List by Goldschmidt (Berlin, 1878) and Jentsch
(Berlin, 1901), also _Fr. List, ein Vorläufer und ein Opfer für das
Vaterland_ (Anon., 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1877); M. E. Hirst's _Life of
Friedrich List_ (London, 1909) contains a bibliography and a reprint
of List's _Outlines of American Political Economy_ (1827).

LIST (O.E. _liste_, a Teutonic word, cf. Dut. _lijst_, Ger. _Leiste_, adapted in Ital. _lista_ and Fr. _liste_), properly a border or edging. The word was thus formerly used of a geographical boundary or frontier and of the lobe of the ear. In current usage "list" is the term applied to the "selvage" of a piece of cloth, the edging, i.e. of a web left in an unfinished state or of different material from the rest of the fabric, to be torn or cut off when it is made up, or used for forming a seam. A similar edging prevents unravelling. The material, cut off and collected, is known as "list," and is used as a soft cheap material for making slippers, padding cushions, &c. Until the employment of rubber, list was used to stuff the cushions of billiard tables. The same word probably appears, in a plural form "lists," applied to the barriers or palisades enclosing a space of ground set apart for tilting (see TOURNAMENT). It is thus used of any place of contest, and the phrase "to enter the lists" is frequently used in the sense of "to challenge." The word in this application was taken directly from the O. Fr. _lisse_, modern _lice_, in Med. Lat. _liciae_. This word is usually taken to be a Romanic adaptation of the Teutonic word. In medieval fortifications the _lices_ were the palisades forming an outwork in front of the main walls of a castle or other fortified place, and the word was also used of the space enclosed between the palisades and the enceinte; this was used for exercising troops, &c. From a transference of "list," meaning edge or border, to a "strip" of paper, parchment, &c., containing a "list" of names, numbers, &c., comes the use of the word for an enumeration of a series of names of persons or things arranged in order for some specific purpose. It is the most general word for such an enumeration, other words, such as "register," "schedule," "inventory," "catalogue," having usually some particular connotation. The chief early use of list in this meaning was of the roll containing the names of soldiers; hence to "list a soldier" meant to enter a recruit's name for service, in modern usage "to enlist" him. There are numerous particular applications of "list," as in "civil list" (q.v.), "active or retired list" in the navy or army. The term "free list" is used of an enumeration of such commodities as may at a particular time be exempt from the revenue laws imposing an import duty.

The verb "to list," most commonly found in the imperative, meaning
"hark!" is another form of "listen," and is to be referred, as to its
ultimate origin, to an Indo-European root _klu_-, seen in Gr. [Greek:
klyein], to hear, [Greek: kleos], glory, renown, and in the English
"loud." The same root is seen in Welsh _clûst_ and Irish _clûas_, ear.
Another word "list," meaning pleasure, delight, or, as a verb, meaning
"to please, choose," is chiefly found in such phrases as "the wind
bloweth where it listeth." This is from the O.E. _lystan_, cf. Dut.
_lusten_, Ger. _lüsten_, to take pleasure in, and is also found in the
English doublet "lust," now always used in the sense of an evil or
more particularly sexual desire. It is probably an application of this
word, in the sense of "inclination," that has given rise to the
nautical term "list," for the turning over of a ship on to its side.

LISTA Y ARAGON, ALBERTO (1775-1848), Spanish poet and educationalist, was born at Seville on the 15th of October 1775. He began teaching at the age of fifteen, and when little over twenty was made professor of elocution and poetry at Seville university. In 1813 he was exiled, on political grounds, but pardoned in 1817. He then returned to Spain and, after teaching for three years at Bilbao, started a critical review at Madrid. Shortly afterwards he founded the celebrated college of San Mateo in that city. The liberal character of the San Mateo educational system was not favoured by the government, and in 1823 the college was closed. Lista after some time spent in Bayonne, Paris and London was recalled to Spain in 1833 to edit the official _Madrid Gazette_. He was one of the founders of the Ateneo, the free university of Madrid, and up till 1840 was director of a college at Cadiz. All the leading spirits of the young generation of Spaniards, statesmen, writers, soldiers and diplomatists came under his influence. He died at Seville on the 5th of October 1848.

LISTER, JOSEPH LISTER, 1st BARON (1827- ), English surgeon, was born at Upton, in Essex, on the 5th of April 1827. His father, Joseph Jackson Lister, F.R.S., was eminent in science, especially in optical science, his chief claim to remembrance being that by certain improvements in lenses he raised the compound microscope from the position of a scientific toy, "distorting as much as it magnified," to its present place as a powerful engine of research. Other members of Lord Lister's family were eminent in natural science. In his boyhood Joseph Lister was educated at Quaker schools; first at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, and afterwards at Tottenham, near London. In 1844 he entered University College, London, as a student in arts, and took his B.A. degree at the University of London in 1847. He continued at University College as a medical student, and became M.B. and F.R.C.S. in 1852. The keen young student was not long in bringing his faculties to bear upon pathology and the practice of medicine. While house-surgeon at University College Hospital, he had charge of certain cases during an outbreak of hospital gangrene, and carefully observed the phenomena of the disease and the effects of treatment upon it. He was thus early led to suspect the parasitic nature of the disorder, and searched with the microscope the material of the spreading sore, in the hope of discovering in it some invading fungus; he soon convinced himself of the cardinal truth that its causes were purely local. He also minutely investigated cases of pyaemia, another terrible scourge of hospitals at that time, and made _camera lucida_ sketches of the appearances revealed by the microscope.

To realize Lister's work it is necessary to remember the condition of surgical practice at that date. About the middle of the 19th century the introduction of anaesthetics had relieved the patient of much of the horror of the knife, and the surgeon of the duty of speed in his work. The agony of the sufferer had naturally and rightly compelled the public to demand rapid if not slap-dash surgery, and the surgeon to pride himself on it. Within decent limits of precision, the quickest craftsman was the best. With anaesthetics this state of things at any rate was changed. The pain of the operation itself no longer counted, and the surgeon was enabled not only to be as cautious and sedulous as dexterous, but also to venture upon long, profound and intricate operations which before had been out of the question. Yet unhappily this new enfranchisement seemed to be but an ironical liberty of Nature, who with the other hand took away what she had given. Direct healing of surgical wounds ("by first intention"), far from being the rule, was a piece of luck too rare to enter into the calculations of the operator; while of the graver surgical undertakings, however successful mechanically, the mortality by sepsis was ghastly. Suppuration, phagedaena and septic poisonings of the system carried away even the most promising patients and followed even trifling operations. Often, too, these diseases rose to the height of epidemic pestilences, so that patients, however extreme their need, dreaded the very name of hospital, and the most skilful surgeons distrusted their own craft. New hospitals or new wards were built, yet after a very short time the new became as pestiferous as the old; and even scrupulous care in ventilation and housemaids' cleanliness failed to prevent the devastation. Surgery had enlarged its freedom, but only to find the weight of its new responsibilities more than it could bear.

When Lister was appointed to the chair of surgery in Glasgow the infirmary of that city was a hotbed of septic disease; so much so that his hospital visits evidently distressed him greatly. Windows were widely opened, piles of clean towels were supplied, but still the pestilence stalked through the wards. The building stands to-day as it stood then, with no substantial alteration; but by the genius of Lister its surgical wards are now as free from septic accidents as the most modern hospital in the land. James Simpson, early in the 'sixties, pathetically denounced the awful mortality of operations in hospitals, and indeed uttered desperate protests against the hospital system itself; yet, not long afterwards, Lister came to prove that it was not in the hospital that the causes of that mortality lay hidden, but in the operator himself, his tools and his assistants. Happily this beneficent discovery was made in time to preserve the inestimable boon of the hospital system from the counsels of despair. When Lister took up the task speculation was on the wrong tack; the oxygen of the air was then supposed to be the chief cause of the dissolution of the tissues, and to prevent access of air was impossible. For instance, a simple fracture, as of a bone of the leg, would do perfectly well, while in the very next bed a compound fracture--one, that is, where the skin is lacerated, and access to the seat of injury opened out--would go disastrously wrong. If the limb were amputated, a large proportion of such cases of amputation succumbed to septic poisoning.

On graduation as bachelor of medicine, Lister went to Edinburgh, where he soon afterwards became house-surgeon to Mr Syme; and he was much impressed by the skill and judgment of this great surgeon, and also by the superiority of his method of dressing recent wounds with dry lint, as compared with the "water dressing" in use at University College. Yet under these more favourable conditions the amelioration was only one of degree; in most wounds indeed "union by first intention" was rendered impossible by the presence of the silk ligatures employed for arresting bleeding, for these could come away only by a process of suppuration. On the expiry of his house-surgeoncy in Edinburgh, Lister started in that city an extra-academical course of lectures on surgery; and in preparation for these he entered on a series of investigations into inflammation and allied subjects. These researches, which were detailed fully in three papers in _Phil. Trans._ (1859), and in his Croonian lecture to the Royal Society in 1863, testified to an earnestness of purpose, a persevering accuracy of observation and experiment and an insight of scientific conception which show that if Lister had never developed the aseptic method of surgery, he would have taken a very high place in pathology. In his speech in Paris at the Thirteenth International Congress of Medicine in 1900, Lord Lister said that he had done no more than seize upon Pasteur's discoveries and apply them to surgery. But though Lister saw the vast importance of the discoveries of Pasteur, he saw it because he was watching on the heights; and he was watching there alone. From Pasteur Lister derived no doubt two fruitful ideas: first, that decomposition in organic substances is due to living "germs"; and, secondly, that these lowly and minute forms of vegetable life spring always, like higher organisms, from parents like themselves, and cannot arise _de novo_ in the animal body. After his appointment to the Glasgow chair in 1860, Lister had continued his researches on inflammation; and he had long been led to suspect that decomposition of the blood in the wound was the main cause of suppuration. The two great theories established by Pasteur seemed to Lister to open out the possibility of what had before appeared hopeless--namely, the prevention of putrefaction in the wound, and consequently the forestalling of suppuration. To exclude the oxygen of the air from wounds was impossible, but it might be practicable to protect them from microbes.

The first attempt to realize this idea was made upon compound fractures; and the means first employed was carbolic acid, the remarkable efficacy of which in deodorizing sewage made Lister regard it as a very powerful germicide. It was applied to the wound undiluted, so as to form with the blood a dense crust, the surface of which was painted daily with the acid till all danger had passed. The results, after a first failure, were in the highest degree satisfactory, so that, as Lister said in his presidential address to the British Association in Liverpool, he "had the joy of seeing these formidable injuries follow the same safe and tranquil course as simple fractures." The caustic property of undiluted carbolic acid, though insignificant in comparison with the far greater evils to be avoided in compound fracture, made it unsuited for general surgery. To make it applicable to the treatment of abscesses and incised wounds, it was necessary to mitigate its action by blending it with some inert body; and the endeavour to find the best medium for this purpose, such as to combine perfect antiseptic efficiency with the least possible irritation of the tissues, formed the subject of experiments continued for many years in the laboratory and in the ward. At one stage in these inquiries an attempt was made to provide an atmosphere free from living organisms by means of a fine spray of a watery solution of carbolic acid; for it was then supposed by Lister to be necessary not only to purify the surgeon's hands and instruments and the skin of the patient about the seat of operation, but also to wage war with the microbes which, as Pasteur had shown, people every cubic inch of the air of an inhabited room. Under the use of the spray better results were obtained than ever before, and this success encouraged its use. But researches carried on for several years into the relations of the blood to micro-organisms led Lister to doubt the harmfulness of the atmospheric dust. At the London Congress in 1881 he narrated experiments which proved that the serum of the blood is a very unfavourable soil for the development of the bacteria diffused through the air, and others which showed that the cells of an organizing blood-clot have a very remarkable power of disposing of microbes and of limiting their advance. Hence he considered it probable that in surgical operations the atmosphere might be disregarded altogether.[1] As long, however, as this was only a matter of probability, he did not dare to discard the spray. But at length, at the Berlin Congress in 1890, he was able to announce that the certainty he had so long desired had been arrived at. A careful consideration of the physical constitution of the spray had shown him that the microbes of the dust involved in its vortex could not possibly have their vitality destroyed or even impaired by it. Such being the case, the uniform success obtained when he had trusted the spray implicitly as an aseptic atmosphere, abandoning completely certain other precautions which he had before deemed essential, proved conclusively to his mind that the air might safely be left entirely out of consideration in operating.[2] Thus he learnt that not the spray only, but all antiseptic irrigations or washings of the wound also, with their attendant irritation of the cut surfaces, might be dispensed with--a great simplification, indirectly due to experiments with the spray. The spray had also served a very useful purpose by maintaining a pure condition of the entourage of the operation; not indeed in the way for which it was devised, but as a very mild form of irrigation. And Lister took care to emphasize the necessity for redoubled vigilance on the part of the surgeon and his assistants when this "unconscious caretaker," as he called it, had been discarded.

The announcement that he had given up the spray was absurdly interpreted in some quarters to mean that he had virtually abandoned his theory and his antiseptic methods. The truth is that the spray was only one of many devices tried for a while in the course of the long-continued endeavour to apply the antiseptic principle to the best advantage, and abandoned in favour of something better. Two main objects were always kept steadily in view by him--during the operation to guard the wound against septic microbes by such means as existing knowledge indicated, and afterwards to protect it against their introduction, avoiding at the same time all needless irritation of the tissues by the antiseptic. Upon the technical methods of attaining these ends this is not the place to enlarge; suffice it to say that the endowments and the industry of the discoverer, as seen in the rapidity and flexibility of mind with which he seized upon and selected the best means, were little less remarkable than the activity of the same faculties in his original ideas.

To illustrate this opinion, his work on the ligature may be taken. It had long been the universal practice of surgeons to employ threads of silk or flax for tying arteries, long ends being left to provide escape of the pus (invariably formed during the tedious process of the separation of the ligature) together with the portion of the arterial coats included in the knot. Lister hoped that if, by antiseptic means, the thread were deprived of living microbes, it would no longer cause suppuration, but might be left with short cut ends to become embedded permanently among the tissues of the wound, which thus would be allowed to heal by primary union throughout. A trial of this method upon the carotid artery of a horse having proved perfectly successful, he applied it in a case of aneurysm in the human subject; and here again the immediate results were all that could be desired. But a year later, the patient having died from other causes, the necropsy showed remnants of the silk thread incompletely absorbed, with appearances around them which seemed to indicate that they had been acting as causes of disturbance. Thus was suggested to him the idea of employing for the ligature some material susceptible of more speedy absorption; and the antiseptic treatment of contused wounds having shown that dead tissue, if protected from putrefaction, is removed by the surrounding structures without the intervention of suppuration, he resolved to try a thread of some such nature. Catgut, which is prepared from one of the constituents of the small intestine of the sheep, after steeping in a solution of carbolic acid, was used in a preliminary trial upon the carotid artery of a calf. The animal was killed a month later, when, on dissection, a very beautiful result was disclosed. The catgut, though removed, had not been simply absorbed; pari passu with its gradual removal, fibrous tissue of new formation had been laid down, so that in place of the dead catgut was seen a living ligature embracing the artery and incorporated with it. The wound meanwhile had healed without a trace of suppuration. This success appeared to justify the use of the catgut ligature in the human subject, and for a while the results were entirely satisfactory. But though this was the case with the old samples of catgut first employed, which, as Lister was afterwards led to believe, had been "seasoned" by long keeping, it was found that when catgut was used fresh as it comes from the makers, it was unsuited in various ways for surgical purposes. The attempt by special preparation to obtain an article in all respects trustworthy engaged his attention from time to time for years afterwards. To quote the words of Sir Hector Cameron, who was for several years assistant to Lord Lister, it required "labour and toilsome investigation and experiment of which few can have any adequate idea."

In 1869 Lister succeeded his father-in-law, Syme, in the chair of clinical surgery of Edinburgh. In 1877 he accepted an invitation to the chair of surgery at King's College, London, in the anticipation that here he would be more centrally placed for communication with the surgical world at home and abroad, and might thus exercise his beneficent mission to more immediate advantage. In 1896 Lister retired from practice, but not from scientific study. From 1895 to 1900 he was President of the Royal Society. In 1883 he was created a baronet, and in 1897 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lister of Lyme Regis. Among the Coronation honours in 1902, he was nominated an original member of the new Order of Merit.

In England Lister's teaching was slow in making its way. The leading surgeons of Germany were among the first to seize upon the new idea with avidity and practical success; so early as 1875, in the course of a tour he made on the Continent, great festivals were held in his honour in Munich and Leipzig. The countrymen of Pasteur did not lag far behind; and it is no exaggeration to speak of Lister's appearances in foreign countries at this time as triumphal.

The relation of Semmelweiss to Lister is of historical importance. Lister's work on the antiseptic system began in 1864; his first publication on the subject was in March 1867. At this date, and for long afterwards, Semmelweiss was unknown, or ignored, not only by French and Germans, but also by his own Hungarian people; and this neglect broke his heart. The French Academy pronounced against his opinions, and so did the highest pathological authority in Germany. In England, till long after his death, probably his name was not so much as mentioned. In the early 'seventies Lister's method was in full operation in Hungary as elsewhere, yet none of the surgeons of Budapest ever mentioned Semmelweiss; not even when, in 1883, they gave a great banquet to Lister. It was after this occasion that Dr Duka, a Hungarian physician practising in London, wrote a biography of Semmelweiss, which he sent to Lister, and thus brought Semmelweiss before him for the first time. Thenceforth Lister generously regarded Semmelweiss as in some measure his forerunner; though Semmelweiss was not aware of the microbic origin of septic poisons, nor were his methods, magnificent as was their success in lying-in hospitals, suitable for surgical work.

In public Lord Lister's speeches were simple, clear and graceful, avoiding rhetorical display, earnest for the truth, jealous for his science and art, forgetful of himself. His writings, in like manner plain, lucid and forcible, scarcely betray the labour and thought of their production. With the courtesy and serenity of his carriage he combined a passionate humanity, so often characteristic of those who come of the Society of Friends, and a simple love of truth which showed itself in his generous encouragement of younger workers. (T. C. A.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _Trans. of the International Medical Congress_ (1881), vol.
ii. p. 373.

[2] See _Verhandlungen des X internationalen Congresses_, Bd. i. p.
33.

LISTER, MARTIN (c. 1638-1712), English naturalist and physician, was born at Radclive, near Buckingham. He was nephew of Sir Matthew Lister, physician to Anne, queen of James I., and to Charles I. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, 1655, graduated in 1658/9, and was elected a fellow in 1660. He became F.R.S. in 1671. He practised medicine at York until 1683, when he removed to London. In 1684 he received the degree of M.D. at Oxford, and in 1687 became F.R.C.P. He contributed numerous articles on natural history, medicine and antiquities to the _Philosophical Transactions_. His principal works were _Historiae animalium Angliae tres tractatus_ (1678); _Historiae Conchyliorum_ (1685-1692), and _Conchyliorum Bivalvium_ (1696). As a conchologist he was held in high esteem, but while he recognized the similarity of fossil mollusca to living forms, he regarded them as inorganic imitations produced in the rocks. In 1683 he communicated to the Royal Society (_Phil. Trans._, 1684), _An ingenious proposal for a new sort of maps of countries; together with tables of sands and clays, such as are chiefly found in the north parts of England_. In this essay he suggested the preparation of a soil or mineral map of the country, and thereby is justly credited with being the first to realize the importance of a geological survey. He died at Epsom on the 2nd of February 1712.

LISTON, JOHN (c. 1776-1846), English comedian, was born in London. He made his public _début_ on the stage at Weymouth as Lord Duberley in _The Heir-at-law_. After several dismal failures in tragic parts, some of them in support of Mrs Siddons, he discovered accidentally that his _forte_ was comedy, especially in the personation of old men and country boys, in which he displayed a fund of drollery and broad humour. An introduction to Charles Kemble led to his appearance at the Haymarket on the 10th of June 1805 as Sheepface in the _Village Lawyer_, and his association with this theatre continued with few interruptions until 1830. _Paul Pry_, the most famous of all his impersonations, was first presented on the 13th of September 1825, and soon became, thanks to his creative genius, a real personage. Liston remained on the stage till 1837; during his last years his mind failed, and he died on the 22nd of March 1846. He had married in 1807 Miss Tyrer (d. 1854), a singer and actress.

Several pictures of Liston in character are in the Garrick Club,
London, and one as Paul Pry in the South Kensington Museum.

LISTON, ROBERT (1794-1847), Scottish surgeon, was born on the 28th of October 1794 at Ecclesmachan, Linlithgow, where his father was parish minister. He began the study of anatomy under Dr John Barclay (1758-1826) at Edinburgh in 1810, and soon became a skilful anatomist. After eight years' study, he became a lecturer on anatomy and surgery in the Edinburgh School or Medicine; and in 1827 he was elected one of the surgeons to the Royal Infirmary. In 1835 he was chosen professor of clinical surgery in University College, London, and this appointment he held until his death, which occurred in London on the 7th of December 1847. Liston was a teacher more by what he did than by what he said. He taught simplicity in all operative procedures; fertile in expedients, of great nerve and of powerful frame, he is remembered as an extraordinarily bold, skilful and rapid operator. He was the author of _The Elements of Surgery_ (1831-1832) and _Practical Surgery_ (1837), and made several improvements in methods of amputation, and in the dressing of wounds.