Cast of Characters
Diana Petes:
First year MPH student at BU. A twenty four year old American female.
Joseph Lister:
British public health hero from the 19th century. Deceased male.
Scene
The dinner table in Diana’s dining room in Brighton, Massachusetts.
Time
September, 2008.
ACT I
Scene 1
SETTING:
A smoke-filled kitchen in a
relatively dilapidated
apartment building. We
see a clutter of dirty
pots, pans, cookbooks, and
baking ingredients strewn
about. The fire detector is
blaring, and we hear a young
girl spouting off various
expletives in the background.
AT RISE:
DIANA PETES is pacing around
the kitchen frantically. She
is in the midst of cooking a
British feast for her soon to
arrive dinner guest, JOSEPH
LISTER, a prominent public
health figure from the 19th
century. Things are not going
well.
DIANA
What did I get myself into? I can barely cook Ramen noodles, and here I am trying to cook a gigantic roast with Yorkshire Pudding. I know nothing about this complicated British food, and I’m going to ruin everything. On top of that, I forgot to wipe down every surface in the dining room with 509, and the “father of modern antiseptic” is going to be arriving at any –-
(The doorbell rings.)
DIANA
Uh oh...
(DIANA answers the door. JOSEPH is at the doorstep. He doesn’t look half bad for someone who has been dead for almost a hundred years.)
DIANA
Welcome, Mr. Lister. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. I sincerely apologize for the mess, but come in and make yourself at home.
(JOSEPH shakes DIANA’S hand, walks inside apprehensively, and locates the nearest sink to wash his hands before sitting down at the dinner table. DIANA nervously brings out the disheveled beef roast and half-raw popovers.)
DIANA
I might as well cut to the chase Mr. Lister. I invited you over because I feel like you’ve had a significant impact on my life. If it weren’t for you and your advocacy for antiseptics in the operating room, I might not be alive right now. I had open-heart surgery when I was a kid, and who knows what kinds of infections I could have gotten? It’s astounding how many lives were saved because of your work. Mortality rates in major surgeries decreased from approximately 45% to 15%. Actually, I might not have even been born since my mother could have died during childbirth if it weren’t for your contributions.
(JOSEPH pushes his food around his plate awkwardly.)
JOSEPH
Diana, you’re giving me too much credit. I don’t like all this gushing; it makes me uncomfortable. I prefer to be modest about my work. And please, call me Joseph.
DIANA
Ok, sorry Joseph. Let’s start over. If you feel I’m giving you too much credit, who else do you think deserves it? Who was your greatest influence?
JOSEPH
Without a doubt, Louis Pasteur. He published a paper stating that the rotting and fermentation of wounds could occur without any oxygen if micro-organisms were present. I had a feeling that micro-organisms were causing the gangrenous infections I kept observing in patients. Too many patients were dying from fatal wounds following successful surgeries, and it frustrated me. I wanted to expand on Pasteur’s experiments and do something about it. His work paved the way for all of my studies.
DIANA
What kinds of experiments did you conduct?
JOSEPH
Well, I knew that in the past, carbolic acid had been used for deodorizing raw sewage. I thought I could apply this chemical to human surgeries for antiseptic purposes. I started spraying surgical instruments, incisions on the patients’ bodies, and dressings post-surgery with a carbolic acid solution. Turns out it worked quite well!
(Both DIANA and JOSEPH are picking at the unappetizing food. DIANA pours them each a glass of wine to make the situation a little less unnerving.)
DIANA
I know you’re humble Joseph, but if you had to pick one contribution you are most proud of, what would it be?
JOSEPH
I think it has to be my emphasis on the importance of hand washing. I made surgeons in the operating theatre wash their hands before every procedure with carbolic acid solutions, as well as enforced the spraying of surgical tools and other surfaces in the room with the same substance. I think this minor adjustment in the hospital sanitation protocol may have saved a life or two.
DIANA
And what specific population do you think you had the most positive impact on?
JOSEPH
Hard to say, but perhaps pregnant women. Too many were dying from post-labor infections, and a great deal of this was due to the lack of antiseptic. After doctors started hand washing and wearing clean gloves, childbirth became a much safer procedure.
DIANA
How did you get the staff to listen to you? Previously, Ignaz Semmelweiss and Oliver Wendell Holmes tried explaining the role of cleanliness in preventing infection, but it was not well received by the medical community.
JOSEPH
It was all in the way I presented the information. I did not attack or accuse the doctors of being dirty and causing deadly infections in their patients, even though that may have been the case. If you point fingers, your message won’t get through to anyone.
(JOSEPH tries a bite of the roast and inconspicuously spits it back into his napkin.)
DIANA
Joseph, if you could pass on one piece of advice to a first year public health student like myself, what would it be?
JOSEPH
To be deeply passionate about your ideas. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. I was known for always standing by my beliefs--they were my religion. It’s the only way I got anything accomplished. Also, I never cared about financial gain or social status. Chances are, you will not make very much money it in this field, but who cares? I was never rich, and I lived happily until I was eighty-four years old with no regrets.
DIANA
You’ve made me feel much more confident about going into the public health field. I have received some criticism from my family and friends who think I am going to regret going into a low-paying line of work. You are proof that it is not about the money or status, it’s about the people you help that matters. You’ve also shown me what an enormous influence a small change such as hand washing can have on a population. Most notably, what I’m going to take away from this conversation is your ability to relate to patients and have them listen to you. In public health work, you can tell target populations to do something like wear condoms to prevent HIV infection, but if you don’t convey the message appropriately, they are not going to respond. To make big changes, you can’t bark orders. I can’t thank you enough for chatting with me. It has really been an honor having you over for dinner. Can we do it again sometime?
JOSEPH
Sure, but we’re ordering pizza!
(DIANA and JOSEPH cheers with their wine glasses, take a final sip, and the curtain closes.)
THE END
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