Mayo, Charles Horace

Mayo, Charles Horace māˈō [key], 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, has major facilities in Jacksonville, Fla., and Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz., and smaller facilities elsewhere. 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.

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).

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