The history of sterilization was not linked from the first with surgery. Surgery came first, fully 600 years before the principles of asepsis and anesthesia were even introduced in the middle of the 1800s. Also in the 1800s, the beginnings of thermal sterilization were being developed in the food industry. The basic principles of antisepsis and prevention of wound suppuration, including the destruction of germs on instruments, dressings, the hands of the surgeon and his assistants, and everything else in contact with the wound were clearly elucidated by Lister in the 1870s and remain the inviolate principles of surgical asepsis today. In general, the marriage between the surgeons and the sterilizers was a successful one; the major handicap to eternal bliss and harmony, however, was an incompatibility between the partners. As in many marriages, the partners made unwarranted demands upon each other, and became frustrated when these demands were unfulfilled. The field of surgical sterilization and surgical safety is less confused by technical inconsistencies than it is by semantic nightmares, such that we will never reach a universal definition of sterility. However, we do not really need a universal definition of sterility. Rather we should learn how to translate sterility tests in terms of the real world infections hazards.