The story of the medical breakthrough that won two Mayo Clinic researchers a Nobel Prize
December 10, 1950 was a regular Sunday in Rochester. It was about time for Mayo Clinic’s annual employee talent revue. It was the first holiday season that the Plummer Building was lit up like a Christmas tree. Rochester’s population had not yet eclipsed 30,000.
It was a crisp, cloudless 21-degree day in Rochester — not too unlike the climate of Stockholm, Sweden, where Drs. Edward Kendall and Philip Hench found themselves on that Sunday in December. Seventy years ago this week, the two doctors, along with Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein, were awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize in medicine for their discovery and medical implementation of cortisone.
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According to Matt Dacy, director of Heritage Hall, Mayo Clinic’s museum, the story does not begin and end with two people at a ceremony — in fact, their discovery took the work of dozens of people, over thirty years of research, and as always, a little bit of luck.
“You find this with discoveries,” said Dacy. “There’s sort of a gravitational pull where different people come together in the moment and it’s a perfect storm in a good way, where things really happen.”
Dr. Kendall and Dr. Hench did not normally work together — the former being a biochemist and lab scientist, the latter a rheumatologist. Dr. Kendall spent the majority of his Clinic career researching the adrenal cortex — and gained international acclaim for a previous discovery on Christmas Day 1914, isolating the active chemical in the thyroid gland for the first time.
That was who Dr. Kendall was, says Dacy — working at all times, relentless in his research, and in 1914 — as in 1950 — his work paid off.
“He actually dozed off the night before Christmas — you cannot make this up — and he woke up, and what did his wondering eyes see, but these little white crystals in his beaker,” said Dacy. “When other people were out celebrating, he was in the lab working. So that was the type of intensity that he had.”
As for Dr. Hench, he was also a relentless worker, but was better known for his gregarious nature and held varied interests. Dr. Hench was a prominent figure in Rochester, as the husband of Mary Kahler, and was an avid reader and writer.
“It showed his curiosity,” said Dacy. “He was able to bridge art and medicine. He loved fiction and writing as well as medical science, of course.”
Left to right, Drs. Kendall and Hench / photo courtesy Mayo Clinic
The two doctors crossed paths in the mid-1940s, as Dr. Kendall isolated compounds inside the adrenal cortex, just as he had done with the thyroid 30 years prior. This intrigued Dr. Hench, who had noticed that some of his patients with rheumatoid arthritis were relieved of their pain if they developed jaundice or if they became pregnant. He suspected a hormone released from the adrenal cortex was the culprit.
In September 1948, Dr. Hench administered the first experimental dose of what was called compound E, and it showed instant results. After a large-scale clinical trial, the two doctors released their findings in April 1949 — and almost immediately, the shock waves were felt across the medical landscape.
“The Clinic actually took movies of the early patients, showing a patient who had extreme arthritis and then was able to move,” said Dacy. “Life Magazine actually picked this up, so this was extremely well-publicized. this was back in the day when this wasn’t on your phone, this was a big effort to get a camera in with the patient, get all that put together.”
The Life Magazine spread was published in June 1949, and in October of 1950, the telegram came through: Kendall and Hench were Nobel winners. Just about six weeks later, the two doctors were on a plane to Stockholm, to meet the Royal Family of Sweden and accept their awards.
The three Nobel laureates each took home just under 55,000 Swedish krona… through a couple of conversion rates and a bit of math, that’s the equivalent of roughly $125,000 in today’s dollars. As Dacy explains, Dr. Hench wanted to split his portion of the winnings with the clinical trial team, but one of the nursing supervisors, Pantaleon Navratil, couldn’t accept his gift — because she had taken a vow of poverty, as a Franciscan sister.
But Dr. Hench would not take no for an answer.
“Dr. Hench, always enterprising, said ‘that’s fine Sister, we will create a study grant for you to go to Europe and you can meet the Pope,’” said Dacy. “So, he found a way to recognize her, honor her, but in the lane where she had taken her vows and had her services.”
Both doctors retired soon after winning the Nobel Prize — Kendall four months later in April 1951, before becoming a biochemistry professor at Princeton. Of course, neither of these men are with us anymore — Dr. Hench died in 1965, Dr. Kendall in 1972.
To this day, cortisone remains a common tool in treating rheumatoid arthritis, among other uses — longtime sports fans have likely heard about a player on their favorite team receiving a cortisone shot to treat an injured shoulder or knee, some joint that’s flaring up. It does have some serious side effects, but it has remained largely unchanged since the two doctors discovered the treatment.
In fact, Clinic doctors have found that cortisone can do more than just mask the symptoms of arthritis, according to Dr. Eric Matteson — former rheumatology chair at Mayo.
“Steroids have been a mainstay of treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, but it’s been unclear whether they simply cover up the symptoms or whether they actually have an effect on the disease course,” said Dr. Matteson. “As we’ve gone along, we’ve learned that steroids actually do have an effect on modifying the disease course.”
The doctors’ Nobel victory remains the only Nobel Prize credited to Mayo Clinic. The prize itself has sat for years inside the Historical Suite on the third floor of the Plummer Building. Post-pandemic, Dacy says the actual vials used to isolate cortisone for the first time will be on display inside Heritage Hall, as a gift from the son of Dr. Hench.
But for now, Heritage Hall is closed — meaning one of the only open public links to this monumental discovery is a tiny bit of green space in the south parking lot of First Presbyterian Church — also used as parking space for Clinic employees.
It’s just a couple benches and a few steps, nothing crazy, no markers that we found… but it’s the old front porch of the Hench residence, where Phillip received that fateful telegram seven decades ago. It’s a testament to a great discovery — one that has endured for seven decades, and promises to do so for several more.
“I always tell people, when you see those steps, Dr. Hench would have come bounding up those steps the day he got that telegram,” said Dacy. “It’s a fun little secret garden here in Rochester.”
Cover photo courtesy Mayo Clinic
