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Dr. Philip Showalter Hench was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania February 28, 1896. He died on vacation in Jamaica, March 30, 1965.

He graduated from Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, at the age of 20 and entered the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He completed his medical studies in 1920 and in 1921 became a fellow at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Minnesota. He was appointed faculty member at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, in 1925. In 1926 he was appointed head of the new section on rheumatic diseases. In 1928 he studied in Frieburg, Germany under the pathologist Professor Aschoff and in Munich under Professor von Muller. In 1953 he became a senior consultant of the Mayo Clinic. He retired from the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in 1957.

In the 1930s he was instrumental in strengthening the diagnosis standards of rheumatic diseases. He wrote several important papers on various aspects of rheumatology which gained his the respect of his profession. He encouraged others to join him in compliling the Annual Rheumatism Reviews, for which he served as the chief editor from 1932 to 1948. Dr. Hench was a founder of and active in the Arthritis and Rheumatism Association during his whole career and served as its president in 1939. Dr. Hench was chairman of the Ligue Internationale contre le Rheumatisme and of the Arthritis and Rheumatism Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. In 1962 he was appointed a member of the Commission on Drug Safety for advancement of the predictability of the action of new pharmaceuticals in humans.

During World War II he served in the United States Army Medical Corps at Hot Springs, Arkansas and at Camp Carson, Colorado when he directed the United States Army Rheumatism Center. He was promoted to rank of colonel in 1945.

When he returned to the Mayo Clinic after the war, he began to mention in his speeches the possible existence of an anti-rheumatic substance based on observations that some conditions, such as pregancy, jaundice or fever, seemed to afford patients remission of the pain and other symptoms of rheumatic diseases. During the 1940s, Dr. Edward C. Kendall, Hench's colleague at Mayo Clinic, succeeded in extracting a compound from the adrenal cortex. With some of the Clinic patients' willingness, in 1948, Hench and his research colleagues decided to try the compound on the patients to determine its effect on their rheumatoid arthritis.

The dramatic results of freedom from pain, lessened swelling and increased movement obtained by the patients were instantaneous news. In 1949 Dr. Hench reported to the American College of Physicians and to the seventh meeting of the International League against Rheumatism the results of the trials of cortisone and Adrenocorticotropic Hormone (ACTH)in cases of rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatic fever. Although the results were hailed by the general public as a complete cure for rheumatoid arthritis, Dr. Hench insisted that the Mayo team had at that time conducted only preliminary trials. However this was a major breakthrough in the treatment and research of rheumatic diseases.

In 1950, Dr. Hench was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine jointly with biochemists Dr. Edward C. Kendall and Professor Tadeus Reichstein of Basle. He won many other awards for his research work, including the Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association, the Heberden Award from the Heberden Society in Great Britain, the Criss Award from the American Rheumatology Association,an award from the Argentine Society of Rheumatology, an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the National University of Ireland, and the Modern Medicine Award.

Dr. Hench was a member or honorary member of many national and international institutions and organizations. Among the many were the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the RoyalSociety of Medicine, London; the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium; the Association of American Physicians; Association of Military Surgeons of the United States.

Dr. Hench married Mary Genevieve Kahler in 1927. They had four children: Mary Showalter Henty, Dr. Philip Kahler Hench, Susan Kahler Bowis, John Bixler Hench. Mrs. Hench's father had worked with the Mayo Clinic to provide the use of the Kahler Corporations group of hospitals, hotels and supporting institutions for Mayo staff and patients. Dr. Hench served on the Board of Directors of the Kahler Corporation.

His hobbies were tennis, music, photography and the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He published several articles on medicial history, most notably on the conquest of yellow fever.

Biographical information from: "Philip Showalter Hench, M.D." by James Eckman. The Journal-Lancet, Vol. 85, No.5, May 1965, p. 218-220; "Obituary Notices: P. S. Hench, M.D.", British Medical Journal, April 10, 1965, p. 1003; "Dr. Philip Hench, Nobel Laureate, Dies" Mayovox, Vol. 16, No. 12, April 9, 1965, p.1.

Dr. McCarty was born in Pennsylvania, possibly in Upper Darby, on October 31, 1928. He earned is BS from Villanova in 1950 and his MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1954. He was a rheumatologist specializing in pseudogout, gout, and rheumatoid arthritis who taught in several academic institutions, including Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital in Philadelphia, the University of Chicago medical school, and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He came to Wisconisn in 1974 after seven years at the University of Chicago and supervised the founding of the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Arthritis Institute in 1989. He was a visiting professor at the University of Texas Medical School.

Earl J. Brewer, MD was a pioneer of pediatric rheumatology locally, nationally, and internationally. He founded and was chair of the pediatric department of Kelsey Seybold Clinic for 22 years; founded and was chair of the Rheumatology Section and Division at Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine for 30 years; and was also a clinical professor at Baylor. Earl was a prolific writer, and authored many medical papers and several medical, nonfiction, and fiction books.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 3, 1928, Earl grew up in North Texas, graduating from Arlington Heights High School in 1945. He attended The University of Texas in Austin for a year and a half followed by a year and a half in the United States Regular Army. After his army service, he worked at night as a hospital laboratory technician in Fort Worth at All Saints Hospital while he attended Texas Christian University, graduating in 1950.

In 1954, Earl graduated from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, aided by scholarships from the Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones scholarship. He received specialty training in pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Earl's professional career spanned 32 years, beginning with a small-town medical practice in Wharton, Texas. As founder and chair of the pediatric department of the Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, he directed the development of that department from 1961 to 1983. In addition, he was a leader both nationally and internationally in clinical research and educational/service projects for such organizations as the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Department of Health and Human Services. As a pioneer in pediatric rheumatology, he developed and directed as clinical professor, the Pediatric Rheumatology Center and Section at both the Pediatric Department of Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Children's Hospital from 1958 to 1988.

Earl wrote what were definitive books on juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which were translated into several languages. He was a leader involved with several important stepping stones necessary for the development of pediatric rheumatology, including the writing of the criteria used in the diagnosis of JRA, founding and chairing the Pediatric Rheumatology Collaborative Study Group, organizing and chairing the Rheumatology Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and helping to organize and chairing the pediatric component of the American College of Rheumatology. He also was responsible for the pediatric rheumatology portion of the NIH, USA-USSR scientific cooperation program.

He worked with the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases from 1975 to 1992 as principal investigator for four studies by 20 centers in the USA and 5 centers in the USSR concerned with arthritis in children. As founder and chairman of the Pediatric Rheumatology Collaborative Study Group he directed over 15 multicenter studies of anti-arthritis medicines resulting in approval of several new drugs by the FDA. His last study was of methotrexate in children with JRA in both the USA and USSR funded principally by the FDA and the USSR and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Earl was a member of the Arthritis Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration from 1976 to 1980.

In 1984, Earl and other individuals interested in forming a parent/child/health professional organization for the purpose of learning together pioneered the first American Juvenile Arthritis Organization meeting in Keystone, Colorado. The meeting is now the largest of the Arthritis Foundation meetings.

Earl worked hard to promote better coordination of care, services and case management for children with chronic illness or disabling conditions. From 1986 to 1990, he worked full time with the DHHS Maternal and Child Health Bureau and Dr. C. Everett Koop, the Surgeon General, to facilitate development of family-centered, community-based coordinated care for children with special needs. With others, he actively developed the Family-to-Family Network to provide support, information, and referral for families with special needs children.

He published 200 peer-reviewed papers, books, abstracts, chapters, monographs, and pamphlets including two medical movies. He received numerous awards, including the Surgeon General's Exemplary Service Award, presented to him on September 7, 1988 by Dr. C. Everett Koop. The Arthritis Foundation and the American Juvenile Arthritis Organization created an annual award in Earl's name that is given yearly to a health professional who has made an outstanding contribution to the care of children with arthritis. The American Academy of Pediatrics created the Earl Brewer Travel Award that is given to an outstanding Pediatric Rheumatology Fellow for a research project yearly at the section's annual meeting.

After retiring from the practice of medicine in 1990, Earl wrote fiction and nonfiction full time, including Parenting a Child with Arthritis (co-authored), The Arthritis Source Book, and a novel, Picking Up The Marbles. Earl was a member of a number of civic and social organizations, and particularly loved his long association with The Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club and the Forest Club and the many close friends he had in those places.

He died on March 19, 2015 in Houston, Texas at the age of 86

Published in Houston Chronicle on Mar. 22, 2015, http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/houstonchronicle/obituary.aspx?pid=174451931

American Rheumatism Association changed its name to American College of Rheumatology in November 1988.

Darrell Clayton Crain, Jr., was born in Washington, D.C., on March 29, 1910 and earned his MD from George Washington University. He worked at Walter Reed Military Hospital before going into private practice in 1937. During World War II, he served in the Army Medical Corps in the Pacific Theater and was awarded two Bronze Stars. Dr. Crain practiced in Washington for fifty years and founded the Rheumatology Clinic at George Washington University. He retired in 1987 and died in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on July 22, 1995. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Frank Couchman Arnett, Jr., was born in Salyersville, Kentucky, in 1942. He earned his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati in 1968 and then pursued internal medicine residency and rheumatology training in the 1970s at The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine, followed by a faculty position at JHU for 10 years.

Dr. Arnett came to the University of Texas Medical School in 1984 to become Professor of Medcine and Director of the Division of Rheumatology, a position he held until he became Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine in 2001-2004. He served as the chief of various medical services at Memorial Hermann and The Lyndon B. Johnson Hospitals in Houston.

Dr. Arnett is internationally known as a clinician, teacher and clinical investigator. He was elected to the Association of American Physicians in 1993 and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in 1995. He served on the Board of Directors of national Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society for 9 years and was national president of AOA in 1996. He also served on the American Board of Internal Medicine from 1988-1994. In 1997 he became director of the first NIH-NIAMS Specialized Centers of Research in Scleroderma, the longest continually funded SCOR in scleroderma in the nation (1997-2006).

Dr. Arnett was Co-Chairman of the Sjogren's Syndrome Study Group of the American College of Rheumatology in 1990-1991.

In 2006, he led the effort to successfully compete for one of the first 12 Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) funded by NIH/NCRR and formerly served as Principal Investigator and Executive Director of that new program, as well as the first NIH Center of Research Translation (CORT) in Scleroderma.

Dr. Arnett chaired or served on a long list of committees. He has been an invited speaker all over the world. He received numerous awards for his work, including the University of Texas Health Science Center's highest award, the President's Scholar Award for Teaching in 2005 and for Research in 2008.

Dr. Arnett was a founding member of the University of Texas Academy of Health Education Sciences and, in 2007, was elected a Master of the American College of Physicians. He has been named to both Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America since 2000.

Reginald Burbank, MD, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on July 26, 1888. Dr. Burbank obtained his medical degree from Cornell Medical College in 1915. Some of the many professional positions he held included: Assistant surgeon New York Orthopedic Hospital (1916-1926); Chief of the Arthritis Clinic at Cornell Medical College (1917-1919); Instructor in Arthritis, chief, arthritis clinic Bellevue Medical College (1916-1926); Consultant on arthritis, Brooklyn Hospital (1926-1956); and Director, arthritis clinic St. Claire’s Hospital 1940-1956). Dr. Burbank dedicated more than fifty years of his life to the study, research, and treatment of arthritis, rheumatism, and gout. Dr. H.J. Hadjopoulos conducted research alongside Dr. Burbank for forty-seven years, and Dr. Hadjopoulos’ name is attached to most of the medical research drafted and published in the manuscripts found within these papers. Dr. Burbank died December 20, 1972, in St. Petersburg, Florida.