Charles Horace Mayo


Mayo, Charles Horace

(mā`ō), 1865–1939, American surgeon, b. Rochester, Minn., M.D. Northwestern Univ., 1888. He specialized in goiter and cataract operations. His brother, William James Mayo, 1861–1939, b. Le Sueur, Minn., M.D. Univ. of Michigan, 1883, was also a surgeon; he specialized in abdominal surgery. From a small clinic opened by their father, William Worrall Mayo, in Rochester, Minn., in 1889, the brothers developed the world-renowned Mayo Clinic. Named in 1905, it became a medical center in 1915. Today it is a private nonprofit group practice with a staff of more than 1,000 physicians and scientists that, in addition to its Rochester facilities, also maintains clinics in Jacksonville, Fla., and Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz. In 1915 the Mayos also established the first graduate program in clinical medicine (affiliated with the Univ. of Minnesota until 1983); it is one of several medical and health science schools that are part of the clinic.

Bibliography

See G. W. Nagel, The Mayo Legacy (1966); H. Clapesattle, The Doctors Mayo (2d ed. 1968); C. W. Mayo, The Story of My Family and My Career (1968).

Mayo, Charles Horace

(1865–1939) physician; born in Rochester, Minn. After taking his M.D. from Chicago Medical College (1888), he joined his father and older brother William Mayo in founding the clinic at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minn., and he was soon performing surgery on patients from ever widening areas of the U.S.A. and the world. His own specialties became the thyroid, the nervous system, and eye operations; he was also known for reducing the death rate in goiter surgery. With his brother William he established the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (1915), to which they donated large sums of money. He became a professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota's Mayo Graduate School of Medicine (1915–36). He was health officer of Rochester from 1912–37 and served in the U.S. armed forces during World War I. He was said to have complemented his brother by being more relaxed and accessible.