Mayo, William James 1861-1939 and Mayo, Charles Horace 1865-1939

MAYO, WILLIAM JAMES 1861-1939 AND MAYO, CHARLES HORACE 1865-1939

Founders of the mayo clinic

A New Way of Practicing Medicine

Brothers and outstanding surgeons, William James Mayo and Charles Horace Mayo along with their father, William Worrall Mayo (1819-1911), founded the world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, one of the nation's first efforts at practicing medicine through group practice. The clinic began as part of Saint Mary's Hospital, which was opened in 1889 by the Sisters of Saint Francis with the help of the William Worrall Mayo, who had immigrated to the United States from England in 1845 and settled in Rochester as a country doctor. The three Mayos named their part of Saint Mary's the Mayo Clinic in 1903. Although the Mayo Clinic began as a surgical clinic, it became a full medical center in 1915 when the clinic's facilities were expanded, and the brothers began to attract other renowned physicians from all over the world. At that time they also founded the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research as part of the University of Minnesota.

Boyhood Apprenticeships

William James Mayo was born in Le Sueur, Minnesota, on 29 June 1861. His brother, Charles Horace, was born four years later on 19 July 1865. Both brothers' training for the medical profession began in their boyhoods. Their father took his two sons with him on professional visits, explaining his diagnoses and methods of treatment and encouraging them to express their opinions freely. The brothers assisted their father in his surgical operations, anatomical dissections, and postmortems. Their father also directed their premedical reading and study and gave them instruction in chemistry, osteology, anatomy, and laboratory techniques. William graduated from the University of Michigan medical school in 1883 and also took medical degrees at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital in 1884 and at the New York Polyclinic in 1885. He joined his family in practice at Rochester, as did Charles after his graduation from the Chicago Medical School in 1888.

Joint Service

William recalled, "From the very beginning Charlie and I always went together. We were known as the Mayo boys. Anyone that picked on one of us had the two to contend with." William was quiet and reserved, and Charles was lively and sociable, with a gift for anecdote and a penchant for practical jokes. Professionally they were known fondly as "Dr. Will" and "Dr. Charlie." When the Committee of American Physicians for Medical Preparedness was organized in 1916 as a step in the Wilson administration's "preparedness for peace," William was named its chairman and Charles one of its members. When the committee became the General Medical Board of the Council for National Defense, William was made a member of its executive committee and Charles his alternate. William Mayo was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the medical reserve corps in 1912. He was called to active duty and commissioned a major when the United States entered the war. He later was promoted to colonel During the war he was chief surgical consultant for the surgical services of the U.S. Army in the office of the army's surgeon general. Charles was also a colonel in the army medical corps and alternated with William as the associate chief consultant for all surgical services of the U.S. Army. The two brothers divided their time between the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and their duties in Washington so that one of them might always be on duty in Rochester. The strain of their war service, added to the additional effort of keeping the Mayo Clinic going, took its toll on the health of both men. Charles contracted pneumonia during one of his turns in Washington, and William came down with a severe case of jaundice in the fall of 1918 that kept him off duty for more than two months. In William's absence Charles filled his post in Washington, making this the first time that the brothers were both absent from the clinic for any extended period.

The Mayo Clinic during the War

During World War I the Mayo Clinic was kept busy with draftees to examine and a war training school to run for incoming members of the medical corps. William and Charles designed short courses to bring doctors-up-to-date on the latest developments in scientific medicine and surgery. Before the war the United States was almost wholly dependent on Germany for medical equipment and materials, and when the German supply was cut off, American medical personnel found it difficult to adjust to the poorer quality of American-made slides, stains, lenses, and drugs. In 1918 the flu epidemic put extra strains upon the Mayo Clinic. Everyone was called into service, including relatives and friends with any time to spare. A small hotel building next door to the hospital had been remodeled and opened for use in June 1918, so it was ready when the influenza arrived in September. The flu broke out in the community in a mild form at first, then suddenly and virulently in the hospital itself. The clinic was quickly overwhelmed with patients.

Postwar Prejudices

After the signing of the armistice, the prejudice stirred up by the war was not easily dissipated. For decades American medical men had taken for granted that part of their training would take place in Germany and Austria, in the classes and laboratories of the European masters of surgery and medical science. But post war prejudices against anything German dismissed the vaunted German medical curriculum as only a propaganda myth. German scientists and physicians were accused of being shameless in developing and exploiting ideas picked up from British and American thinkers. While William and Charles shared in the general antagonism toward Germany, they were not willing to see such feelings translated into action against individuals. When the 1918 meeting of the American Surgical Association proposed that the German and Austrian honorary members be dropped from the list of members, William, in uniform, strongly opposed the action, insisting that political and military hostility should not extend into the world of science. The resolution failed to pass at that session but was adopted at the next one, which William could not attend.

Group Practice

War service gave many physicians their first taste of teamwork in medical practice. Many did not like it, but those beset with problems of increasing costs, not enough patients, and unpaid bills were led to consider group organization by the example of the Mayo Clinic, the inspiration for the growth of group practices in the Middle and Far West. The story of the Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research made the Mayos national celebrities. The national news services picked up and publicized anecdotes such as the one about the pompous millionaire who, seeing William cross the lobby, bustled up to ask importantly, "Are you the head doctor here?" "No," William replied soberly, "my brother is the head doctor. I'm the belly doctor."

Honors

In 1919 William received the U.S. distinguished service medal, a medal Charles was awarded in 1920. Each medal bore the same citation: "In addition to the manifold service to the surgeon-general…he distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious service to the government in his work in the organization of surgical service and his invaluable assistance in the reorganization of the medical department." Both brothers continued to practice medicine and perform surgery until they were well into their sixties. William retired in 1928, and a series of strokes brought Charles's career to an end a year and a half later. Many of their colleagues debated which of the brothers was the greater surgeon; but in medical history they are best remembered as complementary parts of a team whose legacy was the great clinic built upon their surgical partnership. The famed physicians who had worked so closely together died within a few months of each other in 1939, Charles Mayo on 26 May and William Mayo on 28 July.

Sources:

Helen Clapesattle, The Doctors Mayo (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1941);

Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982).