Lewis Atterbury Stimson

Lewis Atterbury Stimson (August 24, 1844 – September 17, 1917) was an American surgeon who was the first to perform a public operation in the United States using Joseph Lister's antiseptic technique.

Stimson was born on August 24, 1844, in Paterson, New Jersey. His parents were Henry Clark Stimson (1813–1894) and Julia Maria (née Atterbury) Stimson (1819–1908). His siblings included Henry A. Stimson (1843–1936), Catherine Boudinot Stimson Weston (1846–1942), Mary Atterbury Stimson (1848–1928), John Ward Stimson (1850–1930), William Frank Stimson (1853–1872), Frederick Julian Stimson (1856–1926), and Julia Josephine Stimson (1861–1933), who was married to Dr. Henry Patterson Loomis. He was the uncle of Alfred Lee Loomis (1887–1975), the inventor of the LORAN Long Range Navigation System.

Stimson attended and graduated from Yale University in 1863, followed by medical school at Bellevue Medical College.

In 1866, after marrying, he entered the banking office of his father and in 1867, became a member of the New York Stock Exchange. He remained active in business until 1871.

In 1878, Stimson performed the first public demonstration of an antiseptic surgery in the United States, using Baron Joseph Lister's antiseptic technique. In December 1883, Stimson operated on former president Ulysses S. Grant's leg.

In 1898, Stimson wrote the charter of Cornell's new medical school, the Cornell University Medical College. He was instrumental in obtaining, along with William Mecklenburg Polk (1844–1918), the medical school's first dean, a gift of $1.5 million from Col. Oliver Hazard Payne to open the new medical college. Stimson was also a professor of surgery at the Cornell Medical College. He made advances in techniques for abdominal surgery and is attributed with developing the Stimson maneuver for reducing a dislocated shoulder or hip, which he described in the article, "An Easy Method of Reducing Dislocations of the Shoulder and Hip", published in New York Medical Record in 1900.

He was a member of the American Surgical Society, New York Medical Society, the County Medical Society, the Medical-Surgery Society. He was also a member of the Century Club, New York Yacht Club, and the Loyal Legion.

In February 1905, he entered his yacht in the Kaiser's Cup.