N EARLY a quarter of a century ago, when we were very young in medicine, we attended a meeting

of a 1ocaI medical society in BrookIyn. The program consisted of a joint paper by Dr. Lewis Stephen P&her and his son, the Iate Paul P&her. The paper was on gaII-bIadder disease, and the Doctors PiIcher had an impressive exhibit of what seemed to be hundreds of gaIIstones of many varieties and shapes. We were not twenty-five years of age. At that time Dr. PiIcher was sixty-five, a time when most men have done their Iife’s work, have decided to rest on their IaureIs and to sit “in the sunshine in the sweet reverie of dreams.” However, as a11 know, Dr. PiIcher did not rest on his IaureIs but continued to carry on. Now, at the ripe age of eighty-nine, he stiI1 does his daiIv tasks.

Dr. &her has had honors conferred upon him. His Iife has been one of accom- plishment and good works. Tragedy and sorrow, aIso, have been his Iot. His son, Paul, had a11 the essentiaIs that are neces- sary for a surgeon of nationa note. Just as he was maturing in his chosen heId he was taken iI and died.

We wiI1 not offer a biographica sketch of Dr. PiIcher. It has been done eLsewhere many times. On this occasion, we wish to offer our sincere and hearty congratuIations on this the GoIden JubiIee Year of his editorship of Annals of Surgery.

Dr. PiIcher and a group of his co-workers founded the BrookIyn Anatomica and Surgical Society in I 878. Their transactions were pubIished as the Annals of the Ana- tomical and Surgical Society. The foIIowing year the transactions were issued as the Annals of Anatomy and Surgery. Dr. PiIcher was the editor. In 1884, it became the Annals of Surgery and Dr. PiIcher con- tinued as editor. Since then he has occupied the editoria1 chair-fifty continuous years of editorship of the same publication.

Should we add the seven years when he was editor of the preceding journals to his

fifty years as editor of the Annals it would make Dr. PiIcher the dean of Iiving rnedica1 editors in the world.

LEWIS STEPHEN PILCHER, M.D., LL.D.

LEWIS STEPHEN PILCHER

The Annals of Surgery was the first surgica1 journal in the EngIish language. It aIways has been a quaIity publication. Its history is repIete with the finest in surgica1 thought and achievement during the past five decades. Guided by Dr. PiIcher’s hand it has offered the medica profession a dignified, authoritative pubIication.

We consider it a priviIege to have known Dr. PiIcher. To me, as a young man, he was an inspiration. His son, PauI, was kind to me in my beginning days. We congratu- Iate Dr. Pilcher and, aIso, we congratuIate the Annals of Surgery in their good fortune in having such a master at the hehn.

Surgery owes Dr. Lewis Stephen Pilcher a debt of gratitude for keeping surgica1 literature in America on such a high pIane.

T. S. W.