George Hogarth Pringle

The spread of Listerian antisepsis progressed at a different pace in different parts of the world. In Australia, it was accepted quickly into surgical practice by a fortunate series of events. George Hogarth Pringle, who had been a Fellow House Surgeon along with Joseph Lister in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, used the technique to dramatic effect and published the case report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

George Hogarth Pringle was born at Hyndlee, near Hawick. After studying at Edinburgh University he was House Surgeon in the Royal Infirmary in 1854. His contemporaries at that time included Joseph Lister and Patrick Heron Watson, famously depicted in the photograph of the Residents taken in 1854. He then became Surgeon in the Crimea War, caring for the sick and wounded being transferred from the battlefield to the Scutari base hospital. Thereafter, he worked as a ship’s surgeon on Cunard liners and latterly on the P&O company ships between Suez and Sydney, Australia. He settled in Paramatta in South Australia in 1860.

In 1868 in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, he described the first use of Listerian antisepsis in Australia. “I crave, in default of any local medical journal, space in your columns for a brief history of (this case), deeming it a duty to communicate as speedily as possible the results so far, of a novel mode of procedure, which promises to revolutionise our ideas of that bête noir of surgical practice, a compound comminuted fracture.” His patient, out shooting Wallaby, had accidentally fired his shotgun through the left forearm above the left wrist smashing both radius and ulna and fragmenting the soft tissues. He went on “I recommended immediate amputation, more especially having the dread of secondary haemorrhage and lockjaw before my eyes; but neither the patient nor his relatives would consent to this and begged for me to try and save the limb. I, therefore, duly warning them of the manifold risks, resolved to try Professor Lister’s plan.” Having dressed this compound comminuted fracture with carbolic acid, he was gratified by the results. “On the 34th day from the receipt of the injury, I found that the whole wound is completely healed up, thus converting a compound into a simple fracture. No pus whatever has appeared …; firm union has taken place between the ends of the ulna and satisfactory progress made with the radius, perfect motion and sensibility retained in the hand."” He concluded, "such are the outstanding results of this method of treatment in the first case to which I have applied it. And be it remembered this is no quack remedy, but the results of patient, scientific enquiry and thought on the part of that philosophical investigator, Joseph Lister”. Publication of a detailed case report in a national newspaper inevitably led to some criticism, but it seems likely that this was widely read by Australian doctors and led to the widespread introduction of antisepsis into Australian medical practice.

Pringle went on to write further case reports, mainly on antiseptic surgery but also on the radical cure of hernia. At the age of 41 he developed dysentery and died on board a ship taking him back to Britain.

His son, James Hogarth Pringle, returned to Scotland, going on to become a surgeon at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Amongst the many contributions which he made to surgical practice were the “Pringle manoeuvre” of compression of the portal triad to reduce hepatic bleeding following trauma.