TB diagnosis gains a new research foundation

James Greenlees was the patient whose case became central to Lister’s early account of antiseptic surgery.

The dressing was designed to keep damaging microorganisms from multiplying in an open wound.

Greenlees’s recovery strengthened Lister’s later published argument, although a single case could not establish the method alone.

He told a Berlin scientific society that he had identified the bacterium responsible for TB.

The announcement connected tuberculosis to a specific bacterial agent.

The annual 24 March date commemorates Koch’s disclosure rather than the eradication of tuberculosis.

The nine-year-old boy received the first dose of a post-exposure rabies vaccination course after dog bites.

The boy’s case followed animal experiments; he did not develop rabies.

Rabies prophylaxis required a series of inoculations rather than a single injection on this date.

Meister’s recovery led people from many countries to seek the new treatment.