Charles Horace Mayo

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.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.