Lewis Atterbury Stimson, MD Papers

Lewis Atterbury Stimson was born August 24, 1844 in Paterson, New Jersey, the second son of Henry Clark and Julia Atterbury Stimson. He was educated in the Paterson schools and at Yale College from which he graduated in 1863. After traveling in Europe and service in the Union Army, in 1866, Dr. Stimson entered his father's New York banking firm. That same year, in Paris, he married Candace T. Wheeler. The couple had two children, Henry Lewis (later Secretary of State and of War) and Candace Catherine Stimson. Dr. Stimson’s wife, Candace T. Stimson, died prematurely in 1876.

Dissatisfied with his life as banker and stockbroker, Lewis A. Stimson left New York in 1871 with family to study medicine in Paris. He returned to New York in 1873 and entered Bellevue Hospital Medical College, receiving his M.D. in 1875.

He was named Visiting Surgeon at Presbyterian Hospital from 1876 to 1889, Attending Surgeon at The New York Hospital and its emergency branch -- The House of Relief -- from 1888 to 1909, as well as Visiting Surgeon at Bellevue Hospital for many years after 1879.

In addition to being a practicing surgeon, Dr. Stimson was a medical educator. From 1878 to 1898 he taught physiology, anatomy and, finally, surgery, at the Medical College of the University of the City of New York (now New York University). He was instrumental in founding the Cornell University Medical College in 1898 after a dispute with N.Y.U. and was CUMC's first Professor of Surgery from 1898 to 1917. Dr. Stimson also had a large part in the initial affiliation of New York Hospital and Cornell University Medical College in 1912, inducing his friend, George F. Baker, to put up $250,000 for such purpose.

Dr. Stimson, trained in Europe just as the discoveries of Drs. Pasteur and Lister were receiving wide publicity, became a leading American proponent of the germ theory of infection and of antisepsis in surgery, In 1876 he performed one of the first operations in the U.S. using Lister's methods and the year before had written "Bacteria and Their Influence Upon The Origin and Development of Septic Complications of Wounds," a pioneer work in the field. His long experience as Surgeon at the House of Relief was used in writing his influential Practical Treatise on Fractures and Dislocations which went through eight editions between 1899 and 1917.

After retiring from active practice in 1909, Dr. Stimson continued teaching and writing. He took a great interest in the First World War, visiting the front in 1915 and 1916 to bring anti-tetanus serum to battlefield hospitals. He died September 17, 1917 at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island.