Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2068

LEWIS ATTERBURY STIMSON (1844-1917) A treatise on fractures. Henry C. Lea's Son 1883 xvi [33]-598 [2] 32 pp., 363 illus. 23.4 cm.

Born in Patterson, New Jersey, Stimson graduated from Yale in 1863 and served as an officer in the Union Army for the remainder of the Civil War. He spent several years in business before undertaking the study of medicine at Paris, where he studied three years before returning to study a final year and receive his degree from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York in 1874. He joined the faculty of New York University in 1883 as professor of physiology, and subsequently served as professor of anatomy until 1889 when he was appointed professor of surgery. In 1898 Atterbury accepted an offer from Cornell University Medical College to become its first professor of surgery. Stimson was an important contributor to the advancement of orthopedics but also made an important improvement in gynecological surgery when he ligated the major ovarian and uterine vessels when performing hysterectomy for fibroid tumors. He advocated the use of a transverse incision in abdominal surgery and was the first to show that bone formation on the humerus created an obstacle when attempting to reduce an old dislocation of the elbow. Stimson introduced molded plaster splints for the treatment of fractures and also developed new methods of reducing dislocations at the hip and shoulder. Stimson was an authority on fractures and the present work is his most important contribution. Five years after publishing this treatise, he wrote A treatise on dislocations (see No. 2069) and in 1899 combined both works into one volume which continued on through eight editions. In this profusely illustrated book, Stimson presents a detailed study of fractures including their varieties, cause, physiological repair, complications, and treatment, as well as a discussion of the management of fractures of specific bones.

See Related Record(s): 2069