'streptococcus' had been given and produced the more violent inflammation, and the other growing in masses or clusters [like the roe of a fish], to which I gave the name 'staphylococcus' which cause a less violent inflammatory disease'. He also noted that a transferring a 1/146 016 000 dilution of the original pus sample could induce abscesses in new subjects. Ogston demonstrated that these bacteria could be killed by heat or carbolic acid, fulfilling Kochs postulates. He also noted that " micrococci so deleterious when injected" were seemingly "harmless on the surface of wounds and ulcers". An observation of the existence of some staphylococci as part of the normal flora. Ogston encountered a great deal of difficulty convincing the medical establishment of his observations on Staphylococcus. The Aberdeen branch of the BMA, received his findings with disbelief. The editor of the British Medical Journal stated at the time 'can anything good come out of Aberdeen'. After a careful study of the evidence presented by Ogston, his contemporary, Joseph Lister agreed with his findings however, another peer, Watson Cheyne was still sceptical. Given this local skeptisim, Ogston decided to present his discoveries to a surgical congress in Berlin where he had previously presented a paper "genu valgum" on 9 April 1880. Ogston delivered this presentation on abscesses in German which was then published. He was subsequently made a 'Fellow' of the German Surgical Society despite his youth (36 years old). The next year Ogston published his observations in the British Medical Journal. After this point his papers were refused, and instead he published in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. Military career Ogston served in the 1884 Egyptian War and the Boer War. He was also instrumental in arguing for the creation of the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1898. During the First World War when over seventy years old, he was sent to assist with the management of severe trauma. Private life Ogston married twice. He had three children with his first wife Mary Jane Molly Ogston (née Hargrave). They were Mary Letitia, Francis, Flora and Walter Henry. His wife died in 1873 and he later remarried and they had five children, Alfred James, Douglas John, Helen Charlotte Elizabeth, Constance Amelia Irene, Rose, Alexander and Ranald Frederick. Both Helen and Constance were active suffragettes. Royal acknowledgement In 1892, Queen Victoria appointed him Surgeon in Ordinary, a post he also held