The Quest for Cortisone

Introduction

1 introduction nobody moves to Minnesota for the weather. This observation is as true today as it was on August 21, 1883. The weather in rochester had been pleasant that morning, but over the course of the afternoon it turned oppressively hot, humid, and hazy. Dr. Will Mayo, twenty-two years old and recently graduated from medical school, had spent the day seeing patients. his eighteen-year-old brother, Charlie, was tagging along trying to make himself useful. The siblings could feel energy building in the clouds overhead.1 At 6 p.m. the boys closed the office and prepared to run an errand—a trip to the slaughterhouse north of town, where they hoped to obtain a sheep’s head. if the weather cooled down later that evening, young Dr. Will and his doting kid brother were going to practice an innovative new eye operation on the “patient” they planned to bring back with them. Dressed in dark wool suits that made them look more like adolescent undertakers than sophisticated medical men, the brothers set off in their one-horse carriage as the sky began to darken. Just before the Mayos reached their destination, the massive cumulonimbus clouds roiling overhead abruptly split open. rain pounded the earth with heavyweight fists. Abandoning their mare, the brothers hustled into a blacksmith shop for protection from the storm. As they ran, the distant sound of an approaching train could be heard over the din of the torrential downpour. But that was no train. As Will and Charlie stared westward, a funnel cloud dropped down and began weaving erratically toward them. Moments later the roof of the blacksmith shop tore away, exposing the full fury of the storm. fleeing the doomed building, the brothers leaped in their buggy and raced back toward town, frantically trying to anticipate the erratic path of the powerful 2| Introduction tornado. The Mayos crossed the Broadway Bridge over the Zumbro river mere moments before the wind destroyed it. The ability of a midwestern tornado to reduce mighty edifices to a state of entropy is no myth. in just over a minute the courthouse, high school, blacksmith shop, and two grain mills were destroyed. Barns were leveled and farm animals killed. Buggies, small fir trees, and long lengths of freshly painted white picket fences cartwheeled across town as if they were auditioning for the circus. still, the tornado hadn’t finished its tantrum. flowing into the Zumbro river was a small tributary called Cascade Creek. As the angry f5 funnel cloud zigzagged its way across the northwest corner of the city,2 it momentarily dipped into the shallow rivulet, instantly vacuuming the bed dry and turning countless carp and suckers into sushi.3 The storm finally ended.4 Discovering that the town’s telegraph still worked, Mayor samuel Witten sent a message to Minnesota governor Lucius hubbard telling him “rochester is in ruins. one-third of the city laid waste. We need immediate help.”5 Twenty-four people had been killed by the tornado, and over forty were seriously injured. As night descended, the living and able-bodied began to pull the dead and injured from their flattened homes. Work was guided by lantern when necessary, but in many cases the numerous fires caused by lightning and toppled lamps provided sufficient light for rescue teams to carry on. rommel hall,6 the city’s frontier version of a dance club, had been spared and was quickly converted into an emergency hospital . Thirty-four patients were injured seriously enough to end up there; over 100 others received emergency care outside of this improvised “hospital.” The doctors of rochester responded immediately. Dr. William Worrall Mayo, the town’s best-known practitioner and father of the two young men who had barely survived the tornado hours earlier, made his way quickly to rommel hall and began seeing patients. shortly after the elder Dr. Mayo appeared, another doctor who practiced in the city showed up and ordered emetics for all of the injured. he was rudely overruled by Dr. Mayo, who reasoned that several dozen wounded patients hurling their beans and bacon onto the folks attending to them wasn’t going to help matters any. With the potential for infighting to continue, city officials decided they had to appoint a strong emergency director. recognizing a natural leader in Mayo, they placed him in charge of the disaster response.7 The first problem facing W. W. Mayo was that he lacked the help necessary...