This sounds more like a history lesson than a medical question. As in: when did Lister determine that surgical infections was caused by surgeons... and did something about it. This from wikipedia:

*At the time the usual explanation for wound infection was that the exposed tissues were damaged by chemicals in the air or via a stinking "miasma" in the air. The sick wards actually smelled bad, not due to a "miasma" but due to the rotting of wounds.

Hospital wards were occasionally aired out at midday but Florence Nightingale's doctrine of fresh air was still science fiction then.* (Typical - women's - i.e., nurse's - sense of what was really wrong with the picture is still considered science fiction. Figures. :lol:)

Facilities for washing hands or the patient's wounds did not exist and it was even considered unnecessary for the surgeon to wash his hands before he saw a patient. This was strange because the work of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis and Oliver Wendell Holmes were not heeded even though the parellel should have been obvious.*

Life expectancy at the turn of the century - which is by their attire when I place your protagonists - at the hands of surgeons was pretty bleak. The surgical model hadn't advanced that far from its barber (shave and a haircut: 2 bits) origins - wonder if we nurses sometimes refer to a particularly gung-ho surgeon as barbaric for that reason? Nah, couldn't be... :biggrin:

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Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks