The collection consists of a portrait (engraving) and a half-tone of the bookplate used on Pilcher's gift of medical books to the University of Michigan.
Lewis Steven Fiske Pilcher was born in Adrian, Mich. on July 28, 1845 to Dr. Elijah Holmes Pilcher—pastor, lawyer, doctor, and Regent of the University of Michigan (1846-1852)--and Phebe Maria (Fisk) Pilcher, a homemaker. Pilcher enrolled in the University of Michigan at the age of 13, and would receive a Bachelor of Arts in 1862 and Master of Arts in 1863. He served as a hospital steward in the American Civil War from 1864-1865. He then returned to the University of Michigan and received his Doctorate of Medicine in 1866.
Pilcher served in several medical positions across Michigan, including as a surgeon in Harper Hospital in Detroit in 1866 (?). By 1867, Pilcher had relocated to New York, where he spent the spring term as a post-graduate at Bellevue Hospital Medical School. From 1867 to 1872, he worked as an assistant surgeon in the U.S. Navy at a variety of locations, including the Naval Hospital in Brooklyn. He also worked aboard the U.S.S. Penobscot and the U.S.S. Saratoga in the West Indies. After resigning from the U.S. Navy, Pilcher taught anatomy and practiced surgery at Long Island College Hospital in 1872-1882 before becoming as Professor of Clinical Surgery in the New York Postgraduate Medical School and Hospital (1885-1895). In his later years, Pilcher served as a visiting or consulting surgeon at a number of hospitals, including the the German Hospital in Brooklyn in 1900-1908, and operated a private practice alongside his sons from 1910 until 1917.
Pilcher was also one of the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn (now the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital). He served on the Board of Managers in 1881-1907 and presided over the hospital's Medical Board and served as a surgeon from 1887 to 1907.
In addition to his professional endeavors, Pilcher actively engaged in publishing. He authored a number of articles and books over his lifetime, including The Treatment of Wounds: Its Principles and Practice, General and Special (1883) and A Surgical Pilgrim's Progress - Reminiscences of Lewis Stephen Pilcher (1925). He co-established the Brooklyn Anatomical and Surgical Society in 1878 and helped found several medical journals, the most prominent being the Annals of Surgery (he would go on to serve as the Annals's editor for most of his life). Pilcher bequeathed his library of medical works to the University of Michigan upon his death.
Pilcher also participated as a fellow or member in numerous organizations, including the Brooklyn Surgical Society, the New York State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association. He was president of the alumni association for the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery (1887-1888), president of the New York State Medical Society (1892), president of the Medical Society of the County of Kings (1900), and vice president (1893-1894 and 1914-1915) and then president (1918-1919) of the American Surgical Association. Pilcher also participated in the Grand Army of the Republic—a fraternal organization for Union Civil War Veterans—and served as its commander-in-chief from 1921-1922. He also received honorary LL.D.s from the University of Michigan and Dickinson College in 1900.
Lewis Pilcher passed away in New York on December 24, 1934.
