Joseph Lister was a student at University College London under Robert Liston, later rising to the rank of Surgeon at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Lister experimented with cloths covered in carbolic acid after studying the works and experiments of his contemporary, Louis Pasteur in sterilizing various biological media. Lister was inspired to try to find a way to sterilize living wounds, which could not be done with the heat required by Pasteur's experiments. In examining Pasteur's research, Lister began to piece together his theory: that patients were being killed by germs. He theorized that if germs could be killed or prevented, no infection would occur. Lister reasoned that a chemical could be used to destroy the micro-organisms that cause infection.