Colonel Eli Lilly
By: Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD
IU School of Medicine 

The educational regimen that characterizes contemporary medicine can seem rich on facts yet poor on narrative, overflowing with multiple choice questions yet largely devoid of wisdom, and choked with policies and standards yet barren of accounts of professional role models we can look up to, take inspiration from, and turn to in times of difficulty. No wonder burnout is such a challenge for many physicians.

Yet to find such role models, we need look no further than our own backyard. Consider the founder of the largest pharmaceutical firm in the world, whose heirs were following his example when they formed what is now the largest private philanthropy in the United States. That firm is Eli Lilly and Company, with a market value of $700 billion, nearly double its nearest competitor, and that foundation is Lilly Endowment, with assets of $80 billion. 

Behind it all is a truly admirable individual, Colonel Eli Lilly. Born in Baltimore in 1838, the eldest of 11 children, Lilly and his family moved to Kentucky and then to Greencastle, Indiana, where his parents could provide a strong Methodist education to their children at Indiana Asbury College, later DePauw University. During a visit to Lafayette, the young Lilly felt a calling to pursue a career as a pharmacist.

The family’s Methodist heritage is no red herring. The Lillys believed strongly in prohibitionism, judging that the only way to stop alcohol from ruining human lives was to ban it.  In addition, they were staunch abolitionists, regarding slavery as a moral blight. They instilled in their son the teaching of Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, that when it comes to money, we should earn all we can, save all we can, and give all we can.

Lilly would work in a number of pharmacies before starting his own and marrying his childhood sweetheart, Emily Lemon, but in 1861, the Civil War broke out. Lilly served in Baltimore, founded his own artillery unit with 150 men he recruited, and took part in the second-bloodiest battle of the war, Chickamauga. He fought valiantly but was taken prisoner and sent to a prison camp in Mississippi. Later, he was mustered out as a colonel.

Years after the war, a fellow soldier wrote to him, recounting the battle of Hoover’s Gap. Lilly was in charge of a cannon but could not see the enemy’s caisson due to the smoke from his own gun. The letter-writer recounts how he called out to Lilly from above, letting him know where his shots were landing.  With his guidance, Lilly soon hit the target. The two men never met, but their collaboration that day helped to save the Union forces.

After the war, Lilly underwent a series of catastrophes. He took his wife and young son with him to Mississippi to run a plantation, but drought wiped them out, and his wife and unborn second son died of malaria. He came back to the Midwest, remarried, and worked for several firms before starting a pharmacy. Eventually, he sold his interest in that business and settled in Indianapolis, where he started his own pharmaceutical company.

Lilly’s first building was located at 15 W. Pearl Street, near the city’s center. His teenage son, Josiah, worked as an apprentice. One of their first drugs was quinine, used in the treatment of malaria.  In 1881, he incorporated as Eli Lilly and Company, eventually moving to today’s McCarty Street location. He sent his son to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, and when he returned, Josiah took over as superintendent of the laboratory.

The business employed its own permanent research staff, developed a reputation for quality, and ensured that drugs deemed to be hazardous would be available to patients only with a physician’s prescription. Such principles propelled the company’s growth by leaps and bounds, and in 1890, Lilly turned the business over to his son. Among the chartbusting products it would later bring to market: insulin, penicillin, Humulin, Prozac, and Zepbound.

The first American patient to receive insulin in the 1920s was Elizabeth Hughes, daughter of former New York Governor and later Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Diagnosed with diabetes at age 11, her weight dropped from 75 to 45 pounds. Then she was placed on insulin, regained her health, and went on to marry, bear three healthy children, and become one of the founders of Oakland University before dying at age 73.

Eli Lilly spent most of the last decade of his life focused on public service, helping to found the Charitable Organization Society (forerunner of the United Way), the Public Water Company, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, a hospital, and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the largest outdoor memorial in Indiana. In 1937, his son and grandsons, inspired by his example, founded the Lilly Endowment.

At his death in 1898, the Indianapolis News wrote of him, “The state and city lost a brave and gallant soldier, a distinguished citizen, a generous, public-spirited, and benevolent man…  He entered into public affairs from thoroughly unselfish motives and was guided in his efforts by a sincere desire to promote the welfare of his fellow men…  Colonel Lilly was a model man in every way.”

Contemporary physicians who have not led such adventurous lives or accumulated such vast wealth can nonetheless find inspiration in the life of Colonel Eli Lilly. He saw his life as a resource for enhancing the lives of his neighbors, regarding his money not covetously but with the eye of a steward, believing that it had been placed in his hands to make a difference for the community. Here shines forth one of the best antidotes to burnout.
  
Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD, is the chair of the ISMA Wellness Steering Committee.