Doctors fear that it may insist on uniform standards across these disparate fields, even though equipping a clinic to the highest standards of antisepsis costs £1.6m and is unnecessary for IVF.
He lived to see steamships, express trains, "telegraphy, photography, anaesthesia, indoor plumbing, gas lighting, antisepsis in medicine, refrigeration, electric lights, recorded music, cars and planes, skyscrapers, radio" and much more besides.American-born but an ardent anglophile, Mr Bryson neatly balances the social histories of his original and adopted homeland.
While antisepsis and anesthesia placed surgery on an entirely new footing, similarly important work was carried out in other fields of study, such as parasitology and disease transmission.
In the 19th century the university's medical school became internationally famous with such teachers as Joseph Lister, professor of surgery, who did his pioneering work in antisepsis there.
Friends' schools emphasized science; the chemist John Dalton, the geneticist Francis Galton, the anthropologist E.B. Tylor, the astronomer Arthur Eddington, and Joseph Lister, discoverer of antisepsis, were Friends.
In this ward Lister began his experiments with antisepsis.
There followed the seven happiest years of his life when, largely as the result of German experiments with antisepsis during the Franco-German War, his clinics were crowded with visitors and eager students.
Infection, despite first antisepsis (destruction of microorganisms present) and later asepsis (avoidance of contamination), is still an ever-present menace; and shock continues to perplex physicians.
The majority of practicing surgeons were unconvinced; while not antagonistic, they awaited clear proof that antisepsis constituted a major advance.
