whose reputation for
gentleness and moderation was so well established. Queen Victoria
herself showed a lively interest in this fiercely-debated question; and
in 1871, when Lister was appealed to by Sir Henry Ponsonby, her private
secretary, to satisfy her doubts on the subject, he wrote an admirable
reply, calm in tone and lucid in statement, in which he showed how
unfounded were the charges brought against his profession.

In 1892 his professional career was drawing to a close. In that year he
received the heartiest recognition that France could give to his work,
when he went there officially to represent the Royal Society at the
Pasteur celebration. A great gathering of scientists and others,
presided over by President Carnot, came together at the Sorbonne to
honour Pasteur's seventieth birthday. It was a dramatic scene such as
our neighbours love, when the two illustrious fellow workers embraced
one another in public, and the audience rose to the occasion. To be
acclaimed with Pasteur was to Lister a crowning honour; but a year later
fortune dealt him a blow from which he never recovered. His wife, his
constant companion and helper, was taken ill suddenly at Rapallo on the
Italian Riviera, and died in a few days; and Lister's life was sadly
changed.

He was still considerably before the public for another decade. He did
much useful work for the Royal Society, of which he became Foreign
Secretary in 1893 and President from 1895 to 1900. He visited Canada and
South Africa, received the freedom of Edinburgh in 1898 and of London in
1907, and in 1897 he received the special honour of a peerage, the only
one yet conferred on a medical man. He took an active interest in the
discoveries of Koch and Metchnikoff, preserving to an advanced age the
capacity for accepting new ideas. He was largely instrumental in
founding the Institute of Preventive Medicine now established at Chelsea
and called by his name. But his work as a surgeon was complete before
death separated him from his truest helper. In 1903 his strength began
to fail, and for the last nine years of his life, at London or at
Walmer, he was shut off from general society and lived the life of an
invalid.

[Illustration: WILLIAM MORRIS

From the painting by G. F. Watts in the National Portrait Gallery]

In 1912 he passed away by almost imperceptible degrees, in his home
by the sea, and by his own request was buried in the quiet cemetery of
West Hampstead where