Of medium height with slight, spare figure and with keen, bright, expressive eyes, Pilcher had an attractive personality and was the embodiment of scientific and incessant application to professional work.
He died of pneumonia in Brooklyn, January 4, 1917.
Pinckney, Ninian (1811–1877)
Ninian Pinckney, surgeon, United States Navy, graduated from St. John's College in 1830, and began to study medicine with Dr. Edward Sparks. In 1833 he graduated from the Jefferson Medical College, Pennsylvania, and the following year entered the United States Navy as assistant surgeon and continued on active duty until retired as medical director with rank of commodore in 1873. In 1848 he received the vote of thanks of the General Assembly of Maryland, for gallant and meritorious services in the Mexican War. He prepared and delivered a series of lectures, some of which were published. Among the best are: "On the Nerves of the Brain and Organs of Sense" (1839); "Life and Character of Admiral Collingwood" (1848); "A Treatise on Asiatic Cholera" (1849); "Home and Foreign Policy of the Government of the United States" (1854). In the same year he also delivered the commencement oration at St. John's College, and made the presentation address at the Naval Academy on the occasion of Commodore Perry's presenting the flag that had been raised on the soil of Japan. Surg. Pinckney was persistent in his advocacy for increased and definite rank for the medical officers in the Navy, and, in 1870, was chairman of a delegation which proposed the medical staff rank and grade for the United States Navy which later, after slight modifications, became the law. He died at his home near Easton, Maryland, in 1877, leaving his widow and a daughter.
Piper, Richard Upton (1816–1897)
Richard Upton Piper, physician and artist, of Portland, Maine, Boston and Chicago, was born April 3, 1816, in Stratham, New Hampshire. He graduated in medicine at Dartmouth Medical School in 1840 and was a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society from 1843 to 1876, living in Boston. Then he went to Chicago, where he practised medicine. He was the author of the following works: "Operative Surgery," illustrated with about 2,000 drawings by himself (Boston, 1852); "Trees of America" (1857); and he drew illustrations for Maclise's Surgical Anatomy. He wrote a "Report on Diseased Milk and the Flesh of Animals Used for Human Food" (Chicago, 1879), and contributed to The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal and the New York Evening Post. He was said to have "the eye of an artist, the hand of a draughtsman and the spirit of an enthusiast."
He died in Newport, Maine, August, 1897.
Pitcher, Zina (1797–1872)
Zina Pitcher, son of Nathaniel Pitcher and Margaret Stevenson, was born April 12, 1797, on a farm in Washington County, New York. When five years old his father died, leaving the mother with four young sons and an unattractive farm. Being Scotch, she had learned the value of education and determined to provide the best possible for her children. Zina worked hard during spring, summer and fall that he might study during the winter in common school or academy. He began to study medicine at the age of twenty-one with private practitioners and at Castleton Medical College, graduating M. D. from Middlebury College, Vt., in 1822. While studying medicine he tutored in Latin, Greek and natural sciences—the latter with Prof. Eaton, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York. Soon after graduating, the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, sent him a commission as assistant surgeon, United States Army. The responsibility of this position rapidly developed his self-reliance, so that he was soon made surgeon. During his fifteen years of army service he was stationed at different points on the Northern Lakes (then a savage frontier), on the tributaries of the Arkansas, among the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws and Osages, and at Fortress Monroe. At these places his leisure hours were spent in study of nature about him, observation of the habits of the Indians, their diseases and the means used for their recovery. The results of these studies may be seen in works on botany, in plants named after him, on fossils bearing his name, and in a letter to Dr. Morton on the existence
