He received much recognition and fame for his 1882 book, The Science and Art of Midwifery, which quickly became a widely referenced text.

For the winter of 1854–1855, Lusk was sent by his mother to Russell's Military School in New Haven, Connecticut, to gain physical toughness through gymnastics.

[4] In 1855,[4] he enrolled at Yale University in the class of 1859,[5] but left school at the end of his freshman year and studied medicine in Berlin and Heidelberg from 1858 to 1861.

[9] He was instead appointed Assistant Adjutant-General (with a rank of Captain) and assigned to the staff of Daniel Tyler on June 26, 1863, but resigned just two months later on September 17, 1863,[9] after his troops were sent to Delaware and marked as inactive.

[6] In the winter of 1871[clarification needed], on the invitation of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Lusk moved to Boston to lecture on physiology at Harvard Medical School.

[9] Lusk was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Bellevue Hospital Medical College until his death[6] after the previous seatholder, Dr. George T. Elliot, died.

[9] At the same time as accepting the professorship, he also became co-editor of The Medical Journal, and held that position from 1871 to 1873, and also became a visiting physician at Bellevue Hospital.

[2][9] The book achieved great sales in America and England, and was translated into many languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic.

[20] Five years after his first wife's death, Lusk remarried to Matilda (née Myer) Thore, with whom he had one daughter, Alice, who married the Canadian obstetrician and gynecologist John Clarence Webster.

[21] Lusk died, very suddenly and unexpectedly, of apoplexy at his residence, 47 East 34th Street in New York City, on June 12, 1897.