Horton Corwin Hinshaw was a Physician, pioneered the treatment of tuberculosis. Horton Corwin Hinshaw [ID 01375] Click here to switch to Ahnentafel view: Ahnentafel View
(Horton Corwin Hinshaw)63 (Corwin Hinshaw)a,b
Born Aug 1 1902, Iowa Falls, Hardin County, Iowa.a,c,d,209
Corwin was named after Horton Corwin b (1852-1925) who, about 1900, was president of the Branning Lumber Company in Edenton, Bertie County, North Carolina.e According to Corwin, his father, Milas Clark Hinshaw, was employed by Horton Corwin, and thought his boss would be flattered if he named the baby after him. So, Milas was honoring his boss, but also, as told by Corwin, doing so in a calculated way.b The name Horton can be traced back to Barnabas Horton, baker, who with Matthias Corwin was one of the early settlers of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Both men were founders of Southold, Long Island in 1640.e
In 1908 the community of Greenleaf, Canyon County, Idaho, which was almost entirely a Quaker community, started a private school, Greenleaf Academy, headed by teacher Lorena Greenfield (who was paid $35 per month). Among the students in the first class of 1909 were H. Corwin Hinshaw and his brother Ezra Hinshaw.f
He married Dorothy Kate Youmans, Aug 6 1924, Pocatello, Bannock County, Idaho.144,g,c,h,i Dorothy, daughter of William Lane Youmans & Ellen M. Parry, was born Oct 27 1902, St. Anthony, Fremont County, Idaho.j,209,d,k,l
Dorothy was an artist.c
On May 31 1931 Horton Corwin Hinshaw, age 29, arrived at the Port of New York on the "S.S. Byron", having sailed Apr 22 1931 from Beirut, Syria [now Lebanon]. He declared he was born Aug 1 1902 in Iowa Falls, Iowa. Traveling with him were:d
Hinshaw, Dorothy Youman, age 29, born Oct 27 1902, St. Anthony, Idaho.
Hinshaw, Horton Corwin, age 3 years 6 months, born Jul 7 1927, Oakland, California.
Hisnhaw [sic], Barbara, age 4 months.
Corwin attended the College of Idaho, B.S., 1923; University of Pittsburgh, 1923-24; University of Berkeley, M.S., 1926, Ph.D., 1927; University of Pennsylvania, M.D., 1933.c
University of California, Berkeley, Instructor, 1926-27, assistant professor of zoology, 1927-28; American University, Beirut, Lebanon, adjunct professor of parasitology, 1928-31; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, instructor in bacteriology, 1931-33; University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, fellow and first assistant in medicine at Mayo Foundation, 1933-36, instructor, 1936-40, assistant professor, 1940- 45, associate professor of medicine, 1945-49; Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, clinical professor of medicine, 1949-59, head of Division of Diseases of the Chest; University of California, San Francisco, clinical professor of medicine, 1959-, chief of staff at Medical Center, 1972-74. Diplomate of national Board of Medical Examiners. Visiting physician at Southern Pacific Hospital, 1958-75; director of medical services at Harkness Community Hospital, 1967-75, member of board of trustees, 1970-74, chief of staff, 1972-74; director of healt operations and member of board of directors for Health Maintenance, Inc. of Northern California, 1972-74. Member of California Interagency Council of Tuberculosis, 1968-71, of California Committee on Regional Medical Programs, 1969-76; consultant to U.S. veterans Administration and Weimar Chest Center.c
Corwin was a pulmonologist.m He had an office at 450 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California.c He was the head of experiments in the 1940's which demonstrated the effectiveness of streptomycin on tuberculosis.m
A member of many societies e.g. The American Society for Clinical Investigation; American Clinical and Climatological Association; American College of Physicians (fellow); American Thoracic Society (honorary life member; president 1948-49); National Tuberculosis Association, etc... He won awards from the California Turburculosis and Health Association, 1955; D.Sc. from College of Idaho, 1957; Trudeau Medal from the American Thoracic Society, 1958; Hall of Fame award from the American Lung Association, 1980; Pioneer Award from the American Chest Physicians.c
His writings include (with H. McLeod Riggins) Streptomycin and Dihydrostreptomycin in Treatment of Tuberculosis, National Tuberculosis Association, 1949; (with Henry L. Garland) Diseases of the Chest, Saunders, 1956, 4th edition (with john F. Murray), 1980.c His book "Diseases of the Chest" was a prominent text for some time on chest diseases.m
Contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. He contributed more than two hundred articles to medical and scientific journals. Member of the editorial board of Excerpta Medica, 1956-; member of the editorial advisory board of Consultant, 1974-.c
In the preface to the fourth edition of Diseases of the Chest, Corwin wrote; "Successful physicians look upon their occupation, not as a means of livelihood alone nor as a mission to suffering humanity exclusively, but as a quest - a contest of wits - a solution of mysteries and control over events. It is not exactly a sport - a demeaning word - but still a contest; more like chess than tennis. It is frustrating at times but on other occasions, especially when dealing with the chest diseases, it is profoundly satisfying. And that satisfaction is most lasting, more real, when the patient shares in the triumph".c
"It has been my rare privilege to play an active role in the development of present day curative remedies for tuberculosis and leprosy, to have known and worked with some of the greatest scientists of this century, to have traveled and lectured on every continent for nearly fifty years. Medical science has progressed much, much more during this interval than during the preceding history and I have had a 'ring side seat'".c
Dorothy died Jun 30 1994, Marin County, California.j,209
Horton Corwin Hinshaw died Dec 28 2000, San Rafael, Marin County, California.n,209
Corwin's obituary was published on January 6, 2001 in an Associated Press story (this from the San Jose (California) "Mercury News"), as follows:n
H. Hinshaw, pioneer in TB treatment
San Rafael (AP) - Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw Sr., a pioneer in tuberculosis treatment and a nominee for the Nobel Prize in medicine, died at his home. He was 98.
Dr. Hinshaw was the first physician to successfully treat patients with the anti-tuberculosis medicine, streptomycin. He died Dec 28.
In 1952, he and collaborator William Feldman were nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine.
The two began testing streptomycin in guinea pigs on April 27, 1944. The animals were cured of tuberculosis five days later. Dr. Hinshaw then went on to test the drug in humans.
In 1933, Dr. Hinshaw worked at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where he became interested in lung diseases. He served as the head of the section of medicine of the Mayo Foundation, University of Minnesota from 1947 to 1949.
He then moved to California to practice internal medicine, specializing in pulmonary disease. He served in several capacities at Stanford Medical School until 1959.
He went on to become a clinical professor at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. He held that position for 20 years, then was appointed professor emeritus.
The "San Francisco Chronicle" published the following on January 11, 2001:o
Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw, who pioneered the treatment of tuberculosis and was the first physician to use an antibiotic against the global scourge, died at his home in San Rafael on Dec. 28. He was 98.
American and allied forces were still battling in World War II when the first antibiotics were just becoming available. At the time, Dr. Hinshaw was a chest physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He and his research collaborator, Dr. William Feldman, a veterinarian, were allotted a tiny supply of the antibiotic streptomycin -- only 10 grams -- and on April 27, 1944, they treated four TB-infected guinea pigs with the entire amount. Fifty-five days later the animals were completely cured.
Five years later, with large-scale human clinical trials of the drug successful, streptomycin became widely used against TB, and Dr. Hinshaw moved from the Mayo Clinic to join the faculty of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
In 1952, he was nominated for a Nobel Prize for his successful work against TB, but the prize in medicine that year was awarded to Dr. Selman A. Waksman of Rutgers University, the discoverer of streptomycin.
Dr. Hinshaw served on the Stanford faculty and headed the chest service there for 10 years. He then moved to the University of California at San Francisco, where he was a clinical professor of medicine until he retired as professor emeritus in 1979.
Even before his long career as a physician and researcher in San Francisco began, he had received his doctorate from UC Berkeley and taught parasitology and bacteriology at the American University in Beirut from 1927 until 1931. He earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
Horton Corwin Hinshaw was born and raised on an apple farm in Idaho and earned his bachelor's degree from the College of Idaho in 1923.
As an undergraduate, he met and married Dorothy Youmans, to whom he remained married until her death in 1994. The couple had four children.
A son, Dr. William Hinshaw, was an anesthesiologist in Burbank and died in 1981. A daughter, Barbara Hinshaw Baird, a special-education resource specialist, died in 1993.
Surviving are another son, Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw Jr. of Tiburon, who shared his father's private medical practice in San Francisco for many years, and another daughter, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent of Missoula, Mont., a zoologist and author of more than 100 science books for children.
A private memorial service is being arranged.
An obituary also appeared in the local "Marin Independent Journal", Saturday, January 6, 2001 (section B, page 1):p
Noted Marin physician dies at age 98
H. Corwin Hinshaw was a pioneer in the treatment of tuberculosis
[photograph]
Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw Sr., a pioneer in tuberculosis treatment and a nominee for the Nobel Prize in medicine, died Dec. 28 at 98 at his San Rafael residence.
Dr. Hinshaw was the first physician to successfully treat patients with the anti-tuberculosis medicine streptomycin.
In 1952, he and research colleague Dr. William H. Feldman were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Before they discovered streptomycin, Hinshaw and Feldman attempted using sulfone drugs against tuberculosis, which was successful on animals but not on humans. But this "successful failure" went on to become the standard treatment for leprosy.
The two began testing streptomycin in guinea pigs on April 27, 1944. The results were astonishing. The animals were cured of tuberculosis five days later.
Dr. Hinshaw went on to develop the drug for humans and, due largely to its effectiveness and later anti-tuberculosis drugs, incidences of tuberculosis fell dramatically.
In 1940, 112 out of every 100,000 Californians had active tuberculosis, and 56 of them died from the disease. By 1966, there were only 24 cases and three deaths.
Raised on an apple farm in Idaho, Hinshaw graduated with a bachelor's degree from the College of Idaho in 1923. He earned a graduate degree in 1926 and a doctoral degree in 1927 from the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1933, after receiving his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Hinshaw worked at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he became interested in lung diseases. He served as the Head of the Section of Medicine of the Mayo Foundation, University of Minnesota, from 1947 to 1949.
He then moved to California to practice internal medicine, specializing in pulmonary disease. He served as clinical professor of medicine and head of the chest disease division at Stanford Medical School until 1959.
He went on to become a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. He held that position for 20 years, then was appointed professor emeritus.
Dr. Hinshaw also served as a tuberculosis consultant to the state Department of Health and an area consultant to the Veterans Administration.
"He loved his family and his line of work," said his granddaughter-in-law, Cameron Hinshaw.
He was a resident of Belvedere for 44 years.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy Youmans, and two children. He is survived by a son, Horton Corwin Hinshaw, Jr., of Tiburon; a daughter, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent of Montana; nine grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
There will be a private memorial service.
The New York Times published the following obituary on Monday, January 15, 2001:q
H. Corwin Hinshaw, 98; Pioneered Treating TB With Streptomycin
By Wolfgang Saxon
Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw, a lung specialist who pioneered the use of streptomycin to treat tuberculosis, died on Dec. 28 at his home in San Rafael, Calif. He was 98.
As a young researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in the early 1940's, he took part in a major effort to conquer tuberculosis. He tested the new antibiotic streptomycin on guinea pigs, which recovered. He then went on to test it on people.
On Nov. 20, 1944, he and two colleagues, Dr. Karl H. Pfuetze and Dr. William H. Feldman, used streptomycin for the first time to treat a patient, a 21-year-old woman who was suffering from advanced and spreading pulmonary tuberculosis and who was near death.
Her right lung had been collapsed in a desperate effort to save her when a new lesion appeared on her left lung. Dr. Hinshaw and his colleagues administered streptomycin, which stopped the spread allowing surgical treatment and resulting in complete recovery.
Streptomycin, discovered at Rutgers University, was the first antimicrobial agent developed after penicillin and the first antibiotic effective against the TB bacterium. It also proved itself as a foil to bacilli causing various other diseases.
Horton Corwin Hinshaw was born in Iowa falls, Iowa, and his family later moved to Idaho. He graduated from the College of Idaho in 1923. He received a Ph.D. At the University of California in 1927 and an M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1933.
He spent his early career as a teacher and researcher in zoology and parasitology before joining the Mayo staff in 1933 and specializing in lung diseases. Dr. Hinshaw was an associate professor of medicine there until 1949, when he moved to California and was affiliated with Stanford University as a clinical professor.
He moved to the University of California medical school in San Francisco in 1959, where he remained until he retired in 1979. He was inducted in to the American Lung Association Hall of Fame in 1980.
Dr. Hinshaw is survived by two children, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His wife Dorothy Youmans Hinshaw, died in 1994.
Another obituary was written and released by grandchild Robin Moore (
[email protected]):r
Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw, Tuberculosis Treatment Pioneer, Dedicated Physician and Scientist, Dies
San Rafael, California -- H. Corwin Hinshaw, Sr., M.D., PhD. - a pioneer in the development of antibacterial treatment for tuberculosis and the first physician to successfully treat patients with the anti-tuberculosis medicine, streptomycin - has died at the age of 98.
Dr. Hinshaw, whose groundbreaking research and clinical work was performed during his long association with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, died peacefully on Dec. 28 at his residence in Smith Ranch Homes, San Rafael, California.
Dr. Hinshaw's long and dedicated career in science and medicine peaked in 1952 when - along with collaborator William Feldman, a veterinarian - he was placed on the nomination list for the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Narrowly missing out on the prize itself, Hinshaw saw the honors go that year to Selman Waksman, PhD, the man who first discovered streptomycin in the laboratory.
The fruitful partnership of Drs. Hinshaw and Feldman began in 1938 when the two shared a ride home from a tuberculosis meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. The encounter is chronicled in a book titled, "The Forgotten Plague: How the Battle Against Tuberculosis Was Won - and Lost," by Frank Ryan, M.D., a story of the search for a cure for the disease that is still history's single greatest killer: "The weather conditions were arctic, and over the 90-mile journey, as the two doctors huddled against the freezing cold in the back of an old Ford with canvas top and sides, they talked about tuberculosis.... The sulphonamides, derived from Prontosil, were still relatively new to America and Feldman wanted to hear more about them. Hinshaw remarked that he had heard of a newer sulphonamide, sulphapyridine, which had just appeared on the market. Perhaps this might be even more promising than sulphonilamide? During the two-hour journey, with wind and snow battering the windows, they decided that they would do this experiment for themselves."
Hinshaw and Feldman then embarked on another, much longer journey that held all the twists and turns of a mystery novel: the search for the cure for the most dreaded disease of the time. However, Dr. Hinshaw was no stranger to adventure. Raised on an apple farm in Idaho, this tall, imposing man beat all odds of becoming an apple farmer himself and earned his undergraduate degree from the College of Idaho in 1923. While there, he met and married Dorothy Youmans, to whom he remained married until Dorothy's death in 1994. Hinshaw went on to earn his Master's from the University of California, Berkeley in 1926, and his PhD in 1927. From that time until 1931, he taught Parasitology and Bacteriology at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon. Now that Hinshaw was a family man with a namesake, Horton Corwin Hinshaw, Jr., the year 1931 also found the couple welcoming their second child, Barbara Viola Hinshaw, while still living in Beirut.
Returning to the States, Hinshaw earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1933. Lured to Minnesota by the Mayo Clinic in that same year, Hinshaw went on to hold several positions in the Section of Medicine at the Clinic. It was there that he became interested in diseases of the lung. He served as Head of the Section of Medicine of the Mayo Foundation, University of Minnesota, from 1947 through 1949.
Due to the efforts of Waksman and his associate Albert Schatz, the first supply of streptomycin for use in studies - a mere 10 grams - became available in early April 1944. The discovery of streptomycin had just been announced in January of that year in a paper titled Streptomycin, a substance exhibiting antibiotic activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Oddly, the paper made no mention of the drug's possible effect on tuberculosis. It was up to Hinshaw and Feldman to prove to the world that this substance could hold the key to a cure.
With precious few grams and precious little time, Hinshaw and Feldman began their testing on April 27 in four tuberculosis-infected guinea pigs. Fifty-five days later, the supply of streptomycin had been used, and all four animals were cured of the disease. It proved startlingly more effective than any other drug they had previously used.
This discovery came on a bright Saturday in June, and is told in a passage from Ryan's book: "In a daze of excitement, they [Hinshaw and Feldman] drove over to Hinshaw's house to talk about the possible implications. Sitting out of the late June sun in the shade of an apple tree in the back garden, they talked and talked into the afternoon. Bill Feldman had brought a bottle of his home-made gin, concocted from 200- percent proof laboratory alcohol, to celebrate with. Five years after that freezing journey from St. Paul, in this wonderful moment of effervescent excitement, they sat back in two canvas garden chairs, bathed in the dappled shade of the apple tree and drank a toast to success and the new wonder drug - to streptomycin!"
Edified by his success in animal trials, Dr. Hinshaw went on to use the drug to effect a cure in a series of human clinical trials. In 1949, and now the father of four, following the births of his two youngest children, William Ezra and Dorothy Helen, Dr. Hinshaw moved his family, and his medical career, to California. He went into internal medicine practice specializing in pulmonary disease. The family resided in San Francisco briefly, then moved to nearby Belvedere, where he resided until 1994.
Dr. Hinshaw served as Clinical Professor of Medicine, Head of the Division of Chest Diseases at Stanford Medical School from 1949-59. During this period, in 1956, he co-authored a major textbook on pulmonary medicine, titled "Diseases of the Chest". The book's fourth edition was published in 1980, and has been translated into several foreign languages. He also authored more than 215 articles in medical journals and scientific publications.
Continuing his medical career, he became Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco in 1959, and held this position until 1979, when he was appointed Emeritus Professor.
Throughout the course of his distinguished career, Hinshaw encountered many well-known legends of his time. He and Charles Lindberg worked together on experiments in high-altitude aviation medicine. Together they tested the effects of altitude on pilots.
He also served as an inspiration to his large family, evidenced by his wife Dorothy's lifelong involvement with the National Tuberculosis Association (the Christmas Seal organization) and his sons' medical careers: Horton Corwin Hinshaw, Jr., shared his father's private practice in San Francisco for many years, and William Hinshaw, M.D., was an anesthesiologist at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, California, until his untimely death in 1981 [sic]. His two daughters also strove to carry on the Hinshaw tradition: Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, who earned her PhD.in Zoology from UC Berkeley, exactly 40 years after her father, is the author of more than 100 books on scientific subjects for young readers; and Barbara Hinshaw Baird, who was a special education resource specialist and teacher with a Master's degree in Education, until her death in 1993.
Hinshaw's dedication to medicine did not stop at the bedside. His many professional affiliations ranged from serving as president of the American Thoracic Society from 1948-49 and vice president of the National Tuberculosis Association (now the American Lung Association) from 1946-47, to serving on countless committees and appearances on televised public service announcements about the risks of exposure to tuberculosis.
He is survived by two of his children and many grandchildren and great grandchildren. According to the family's wishes, a private memorial service will be held.