PITCHER
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PITCHER
physician, 1845; and during Buchanan's
administration, surgeon of the Marine
Hospital in Detroit. He was elected
president of the American Medical
Association at its meeting in Detroit,
1856, and was editor of the "Peninsular
Medical Journal," 1855-56-58; he was
president of the Old Territorial Medical
Society during fourteen years; president
of the Michigan State Medical Society,
1855-56; a founder of the Sydenham
Society; a founder of Detroit Medical
Society, 1852-58. Zina Pitcher was
versed in the habits of beasts and birds;
his contributions to Indian materia
medica were classic. His perception of
scientific facts was imusually quick
and his memory tenacious. In driving
through the country he at once detected
an unfamiliar plant or animal, secured a
specimen and determined its place.
While in Texas he collected many fossils
and forwarded them to the Philadelphia
Academy of Natural Sciences. Studies of
these and alhed collections were the basis
of Dr. S. G. Morton's work entitled
"Cretaceous System of the United
States." One of the specimens is known
as "Gryphoea Pitcheri." In "Gray and
Torrey's Flora of the United States"
several new species are named after
Dr. Pitcher in acknowledgment of his
service to botany. So general is the use
of hot water in checking hemorrhage that
few remember that it originated with Dr.
Pitcher. His home was at the service of
the sick; he was known to have taken a
stranger suffering from small-pox into his
home, and both nurse and doctor him to
recovery. Moreover, to him the Bible
was a guide, a counsellor and inspiration.
In 1824 Zina Pitcher married Ann Shel- don, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and had a son (Nathaniel) and daughter (Rose), the mother dying in 1864. In 1867 he married Emily Backus, grand-daughter of Col. Nathaniel Rochester, of Virginia, the founder of Rochester, New York, and on the death of DeWitt Clinton, acting governor of New York.
Dr. Pitcher died April 5, 1872, from unoperated stone in the bladder.
His papers included:
1832. "Penetrating Wound of the Abdomen and Section of the Intestinal Canal Successfully Treated on the Plan of Ramdohr." ("American Journal, Medical Sciences," vol. x, p. 42.) (Under the conditions this was a remarkable piece of surgery.)
1852. "Report of Committee on Epi- demics of Ohio Indians and Michigan." (By G. Mendenshall and Zina Pitcher; Ibid.)
1853. "Are Typhus and Typhoid Fevers Identical?" ("Peninsular Med- ical Journal," vol. i, second series.
1853. "Epilepsy Treated by Ligation of the Common Carotid Artery." (" Pen- insular Medical Journal," vol. i, pp. 8-10.)
1854. "Medicine of American In- dians." (Part 4, pp. 502-519, of Schoolcraft's " Information Respecting the History and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States," Philadel- phia, 1854.)
1855. "On the Induction of Puerperal Fever by Inoculation." ("Peninsular Medical Journal," vol. ii.)
1855. "Amputation in Utero." (Ibid., vol. iii.)
1855. "Malformation of the Heart." (Ibid., vol. iii.)
1855. "Report on the Epidemics of Ohio Indians and Michigan for the Years 1852-53." (G. Mendenhall and Zina Pitcher, "Transactions, American Med- ical Association," vol. vii, presented in 1854.)
1856. "Scurvy from Moral Causes." ("Peninsular Medical Journal," vol. iii.)
1856. "Case of Vicarious Menstrua- tion Showing also the Morbid Relations of the Colon and Uterus." (Ibid., vol. iv.)
1857. "Morbus Coxarius." (Ibid., vol. iv.)
1857. "Alterative Influence of Valvu- lar Heart Disease in Pulmonary Tubercu- losis." (Ibid., vol. V.)
1858. "Chnical Instruction." ("Pen- insular and Independent Medical Jour- nal," vol. i. Response to A. B. Palmer.)
1858. "On the Influence which Theo- retical Opinions in Medicine have Exer-
