Philip Showalter Hench

Philip Showalter Hench was an American physician. Hench, along with his Mayo Clinic co-worker Edward Calvin Kendall and Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for the discovery of the hormone cortisone, and its application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Hench was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on February 28, 1896. Hench attended a private high school, Shadyside Academy, and then enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh in 1916. He received his B.A. from Lafayette in 1916 and enrolled at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, where he received his M.D. in 1920.

Hench became a fellow in medicine at the Mayo Foundation of the University of Minnesota. The bright young physician and scientist would spend his entire career at the Mayo Clinic, where, in 1926, he cofounded the Department of Rheumatic Disease, which was the first training program in rheumatology in the United States. Hench spent the 1927-28 academic year on sabbatical studying research medicine with Ludwig Aschoff , a leading rheumatic fever investigator, at Freiburg University. He also studied with clinician Freidrich von Müller in Munich. Hench completed his formal education in 1931 when he received a Master of Science degree in internal medicine from the University of Minnesota.

Hench retired from the Mayo Foundation in 1957. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he was a recipient of the numerous awards, including the prestigious Lasker Award, which he also shared with Kendall. In short, Hench came to be the world's expert on the yellow fever story and the stewar