A 19th-century engraving of a device for spraying antiseptic during surgery. Water was heated in the main body of the device to make steam. This passed along a tube (at upper right), and picked up droplets of antiseptic from the jar at lower right. This mixture was then sprayed over the area where the surgeons were working. Antiseptic surgical methods were devised in 1867 by British surgeon Joseph Lister. The antiseptic spray prevented post-operative infections, but caused eczema on the hands of operators and nurses, and it was abandoned in favor of aseptic methods in the late 1880s. Image of a sprayer from 1882.