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tv   American Artifacts Mayo Clinic  CSPAN  March 30, 2020 1:34pm-2:01pm EDT

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do down. be prepared for your second exam coming up next week. thank you for being here. if you would like to come down and look at the weapons, dr. kiner will hang out a little while and let you touch and see what you want. thank you so much. >> announcer: we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight from our real america series, a look at the film "silent invader," going back to 1957 and the influenza virus emerging from asia, which led to a pandemic that killed more than 1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the united states. american history tv tonight at
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in rochester, minnesota, in 1989. which consistently ranked as one of the top hospitals in america. and now a look at the origins of mayo and how it grew to become world renowned. mayo clinic is an american institution. it's at the heart of our country in many respects. it is the world's first and largest private multi-specialty group practice of medicine. that's a big, formal term, but what it really means is specialists working together in a highly organized way, devoting a whole range of unique, diverse talents for the sole purpose of serving the needs of each individual patient. and this is a model that the mayo family developed uniquely that has expanded and grown and welcomed patients from all over the world for more than 150
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years. this is heritage hall, the museum of mayo clinic that was established with a generous gift. they had a unique vision. today we'll explore the history, but more importantly the living legacy of mayo clinic. now, if you think about it, every patient has a history. the first thing you do when you see your doctor, you give your history as a patient. what your illnesses are, your health status, your family background. that history informs the care that you receive today with your hope of a healthier future. just as you as a patient have a history, so, too, does an organization. mayo clinic has a history and our history here is a living, dynamic part of who we are. it informs who we are today and it sets the stage for where
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we're going in the future. so you will see, as you travel around mayo clinic here in heritage hall and our other historic displays that history is present with us. i will be showing you and my colleagues will show you some fun and interesting things that bring that to life. a lot of people wonder how a very large prominent medical center ever got started in a small remote town like rochester, minnesota. it's an amazing combination of factors. mayo is a family name, so we want to meet the mayo family now, dr. william worrell mayo was born near manchester, england, near 1819. he grew up in the industrial revolution. he developed a very strong social conscience of giving back to other. young mayo sought a better future for himself. he came to america in the 18 408 40s. he married a woman, louise abigail wright.
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she was a businesswoman. wonderful teamwork coming together to serve patients. malaria was common. when the lincoln administration named him to be a union army examining doctor during the american civil war. his role was to see which young men were fit for military duty. we were one of the youngest states in the nation. his job was to see who was fit for service. the family stayed here, because miss mayo said, we're not moving anymore. abraham lincoln brought us here, mrs. mayo kept us here, and dr. mayo set up his practice. the two boys, his sons, will and charlie, recalled that they grew up in minnesota like farm boys on a farm.
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they would go out with their dad to serve his patients, deliver babies, set bones, perform surgery. they just absorbed his ideals and his values and it was natural that they would be going into medicine as their time came. the mayo family had been here since the 1860s. now it's the summer of 1883. dr. mayo is the senior physician in town. his eldest son, will, just graduated medical school that spring. charlie was still a high school preparetory student here at home. august, this is the midwest, a terrible cyclone comes. humidity, storms, hail. a terrible devastating storm struck the city, causing death and destruction. dr. mayo and his sons were in charge of helping the survivors. they needed nurses. most women had their families to look after. so in seeking help, dr. mayo went down the street to the economy of our lady of lord, founded by the franciscan sisters and mother alfred mohs, the mother superior, sent her sisters to be his nurses.
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they work in a dance hall and various makeshift facilities. not long after the disaster and what we see here in this tableau is mother alfred came to dr. mayo with a true vision. she said, we the franciscans will build a hospital for this city if you and your sons will staff it. dr. mayo resisted. hospitals are expensive, risky, he was elderly, small town, we can't do this. mother alfred persisted. she said, with our faith, hope, and energy, it will succeed. so they shook hands, dr. mayo and mother alfred. no legal contract, a bond of trust. and from that, st. mary's hospital opened in 1889. now, if you think about it, in this tableau, men and women did not work together as professional counterparts at that time. dr. mayo was a man, a man of science, who admired charles darwin. mother alfred, a woman of faith, named her order for the virgin
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mary. they found common ground in serving patients. if you get this at mayo clinic, you get all the rest, because you have different people, different skills, different points of view, but they come together for that common purpose. and each one brought something very unique to the equation. dr. mayo and louise raised their family right here in rochester in this house, which stood literally across the street from where we are right now. they made a momentous decision when the brothers were quite young. they decided they would mortgage this house, and with that mortgage, funding, purchase a microscope to help care for doctor mayo's patients. this is an example of a 19th century microscope at that time, that they would have used. the mayo boys were young. they were maybe 8, 9, 4, 5 years old at that time, the two of them. they always remember their parents' sacrifice. so they grew up knowing that medicine was a true calling. you enter medicine to serve
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other people and to work together in a cooperative manner. so fast forward, we see william and charles as adults. they were arguably the most successful doctors in america, by the late 19-teens, early 1920s. remembering their parents' sacrifice and the example of the franciscan sis tors, in 1919, the mayo brothers and their wives donated all of the assets of mayo clinic, the land, the buildings, the equipment, and the majority of their live savings to transform mayo from a private partnership into a not-for-profit organization. that's the structure that we have today. mayo clinic is here today because of their sacrifice and their generosity. we've talked about the origins of mayo clinic here in heritage hall, but it's really worthwhile to visit the plumber building, the third floor archive and historical suite to get a feeling for how the clinic grew and flourished. >> right now, we're standing in
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the historical suite, which is located in the plummer building. and it is the suite where the last offices of dr. will and dr. charlie mayo are located. along with the board of governors' room. the space today is used as a museum and our patients and visitors are able to learn more about our history. how the mayos practiced medicine was much different than it is today. william worrell, the father, actually was the physician who would go out into the country, get on his buggy and horse, and take it out to the farms and visit the patients. surgeries were performed on kitchen tables, not in hospital or operating room settings. and strums and medicine were very crude and not as we know today. what you're looking at here are some medicines that were carried in a physician's bag and you'll see that there's not very many to select from, so you understand that there wasn't a
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lot known about what would cure different ailments, but this is what they had and would prescribe to patients or administer one dose and hope that it would work. the mayos practiced out of their home and also visited the patients' homes, but eventually they realized that they needed larger space. so they opted to rent some space in downtown rochester, and here are some of the different locations they rented. the ma ssonic temple was a newl built building and they rented space on the second floor for patients to be seen there. they worked in the masonic temple until 1914 and this building represents the very first mayo clinic that was built by the mayo family. and it housed an innovative group practice in medicine. the father, william worrell, instilled in the boys that they needed to have others join the practice. he often quoted no one is big enough to be independent of
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others, so they realized early on that they needed to hire other individuals with other talents and interests to provide the best care for our patients. doctor will and dr. charlie were surgeons, but they knew they needed internists, people working in the laboratory and all other aspects of medicine to provide the best care for our patients. so here you'll see the first mayo clinic being built. it started in 1912 with the construction. and in 1914, it hoped. it was five floors. and it housed all of the different specialties we were anticipating about 14,000 patients to arrive on an annual basis, but 26,000 were coming to rochester for care. so we quickly outgrew this space and ended up building the next building that we'll be talking about, which is the plummer building currently, but it was the second mayo clinic. and this is 15 floors.
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and again, it encompassed all of the departments that the patients would need to be seen in. and it was, again, an integra integrative group practice. here is a model of an examining room that would have been in the 1914 mayo clinic building. it's very similar to our exam rooms today, we'll see a couch where the patient or family members sit, an example table, a physician's desk, a scale, and a sink. so very simple, cork floors were also in both in 1914 mayo clinic building, along with the mayo building, because cork was easier on the legs and provided less stress. so you could stand for longer periods of time. also in the clinical practice, they realized that the rooms, exam rooms and any of the instruments used needed to be cleaned and the cover over the bedding and that type of thing needed to be changed frequently.
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the idea of aseptic and antiseptic techniques were developed over in england and they had seen it practiced over there in their travels and they brought those practices back to mayo clinic. i'm standing in dr. will's last office. this would have been used during his administrative years after he had retired from surgery. so 1928 is when he would have moved into this area. and you'll see his desk, his notto, he loved the truth and sought to know it. dr. will is described as the businessman, administrative type. he sometimes was known to be more stern, but had a great sense of humor. and he married his high school sweetheart. her photo is on the bookcase. and her name was hattie damon, she was the daughter of a local jeweler. they had five children, but only
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two lived past fantasy, two daughters, carrie and phoebe. both of the daughters married prominent mayo surgeons. so medicine stayed in the family, even though the doctors did not go into medicine. in 1928 when dr. will moved into this office, he was no longer practicing as a surgeon. however, he was very involved in the mayo clinic, yet, administratively. he also sat on the board of governors until 1935, when he stepped down and let the younger individuals take over running the clinic. and he still was intimately involved knowing that our patients were being taken care of. this is my favorite room we're standing in at the moment. it's the board of governors room. it started because dr. will and dr. charlie in 1915 started the proceedings to set up mayo clinic as a nonprofit organization.
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that involved setting up a board and we're still run by a board today. this is the boardroom. all the honors and awards on the wall are of dr. will and dr. charlie, from all over the world. they traveled extensively to learn from others and bring back best practices here to rochester and mayo clinic. and then, what they would do is, they would go and travel for several months, each spring and fall, one always stayed back at mayo to tend to business. and they would present and visit other hospitals and became very known to other physicians. dr. will really felt that jealousy amongst the medical profession would be a detriment and sharing of knowledge was really critical for the profession. and you can tell by the honors and awards that they were very well respected by their peers. dr. will was asked to give an address at rush medical college for the graduating class in 1910, and that is when he articulated that the needs of
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the patient come first, which is our primary value here at mayo clinic. all we do is for our patients. and the mayos also realized that you needed education and you needed research to be able to provide that patients. we still practice with that in our fore thought and so education, we have five schools here at mayo clinic. and we also have many research labs so that we can advance medicine and science. the history of mayo clinic is integral to the history of rochester. the city has grown and expanded right along with mayo clinic to provide different services and amenities for our patients just as mayo clinic has. >> we're in a place of heritage hall called the treasures gallery. we have a number of cubbies that present different treasures of mayo's unique contributions to medicine and society.
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so over here is an iconic artifact. it's a baseball signed by lou gehrig when he was a patient here in 1939. the black and white photo shows him as a patient and he gave back in many ways. he befriended local youth. he gave batting lessons and pitching clinics, worked out with bob's team down at soldiers field. bob asked mr. lou gehrig to sign his ball. and he did sign the ball the day he was diagnosed with the disease. the color photo shows bob still treasuring that baseball. at the end of his life, bob sold that ball to a local business executive here in rochester. and andy bought the ball for the
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soul purpose that he and his daughter tailor would give it to mayo clinic to display to inspire our patients. so you have a generosity coming together with this one baseball signed by a great american athlete. other examples here would be the -- a replica of the noble prize that mayo clinic received in 1950. two mayo staff members. dr. kendell, a laboratory scientist and dr. finch, worked together on the invention of cortisone. they received this noble prize, a classic example of a bridge from discovering something in the lab to applying it to the care of patients. and the word came to mayo clinic by a text message, a western union telegram announcing that.
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he were team based in their philosophy that they used part of their prize money for the noble award and they gave it to their laboratory and clinical assistants. one of their assistants was a center. with her vow of poverty, she could not accept a financial recognition, so they found a way to deal with that. they said, sister, we will send you on a trip to europe and you can meet the pope. always found out ways to contribute and give back to others. other artifacts, an early telephone. dr. mayo had the first telephone in this region. it connected his farmhouse with his office and so the idea of patient convenience, you could walk into the local area and call dr. mayo at his home. this was transformative, disruptive technology at that time. the local newspaper actually had to print an article, how to place a telephone call. it was so new to people, they
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didn't know what to do. the paper assured them that your voice and dr. mayo's voice will be as clear a mile apart as if you were in the same room. and they went on these long, elaborate directions. you would talk into this and listen for that and various things. but a new way of communicating for your medical care. 1919 when the mayo family, the brothers and their wives made the joint decision to donate the assets of the clinic and their life savings to our non-profit mission, here is the deed of gift, the legal document they signed, and the ink well they used given to us by the mayo family. this deed of gift, it's a legal document but it's kind of a statement of their philosophy. and if you read through all of the legalese and terminology of the therefores and all of that, there's a couple of powerful sentences that stand out and one of them, the mayos wrote that
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the ultimate purpose of the clinic, past, present and future, must be measured by its contributions to the good of humanity. they didn't say cure this disease or open this lab or run this program. they said serve humanity. that will never go out of date. other examples here on the eve of world war ii, mayo began working in aviation. planes could fly higher but crews were crashing because they were blacking out at the high levels not having sufficient oxygen. the planes were crashing, crews were getting clear. mayo understands blood circulation. we began working in different ways, top secret, during those war years, but we developed the g suit to keep the blood pressure up allowing the pilot and crew to remain conscience. we developed an oxygen mask.
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this invention is still used in aviation today. it helped launch the jet age and the space travel all have roots in mayo's aviation research. at that time we charged the government $1 a year for our wartime services. that whole philosophy of giving back. the knowledge of blood circulation opened up the era of open-heart surgery. here you're seeing a large photograph of the early heart-lung bypass machine. there was a doctor in philadelphia who developed a heart-lung bypass machine. the machine would take over giving oxygen to keep the patient alive. the doctor had one patient survive and four passed away and he couldn't go on. but mayo thought there was merit in the doctor's technology. so we essentially reengineered
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his machine. engineers, surgeons, nurses all working together to create what's now called the mayo gibbon heart-lung bypass surgery. if you know anybody who has had open-heart surgery, it began with a machine like this. our first patient at mayo clinic, right over here, linda, she was a 5-year-old girl from bismarck, north dakota, she was dying of a heart defect. she had a very short time to live. her parents brought her here with no other hope. her life was saved on a machine just like this. that's her sixth birthday party a few months after her operation. she's had a wonderful life, a lovely person. i've interviewed her a number of times. it's fun. linda came back to mayo clinic on the 50th anniversary of her heart surgery. she was our guest of honor. and look what she gave us, she gave us her off book and her get
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well cards her mother had saved for her. we tell our new employees when they come here on their tour, behind every invention at mayo clinic, there's always a linda. and what's really sweet, typical -- my daughters have done this. she's got his world famous surgeon's autograph, the cleaning lady's autograph, the land lady of her rooming house, the kid in the best next to her. you see her skral here of her name. she tells a story, i remember she described this very vividly. she was young, 5 years old. night before surgery she -- what she remembers are these tall, young men in white jackets. they got on their knees to talk to her eye to eye. and they said, tomorrow, you're going to fall asleep. but when you wake up, you're
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going to feel a whole lot better. and she said, i had no idea how nervous they must have been because she was their first patient. you have this amazing trust that goes back and forth. medicine is undergoing vast changes. even in my career here at mayo clinic, i've seen tremendous advances in medicine. the pace is only accelerating. and as we look at these exciting future, this dynamic potential of what medicine can do for a better health for people all over the world, we come back to the unchanging things. at mayo clinic there's this dynamic innovation, the values, the history of mayo, it's this firm foundation. it doesn't hold us back. it empowers us to go forward. but we have to understand that history and value it and intercept it for every
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generation and that will keep us grounded. it will give us the propulsion to go forward and the future is very exciting. coming up on americ"america history tv", lectures in history. first, african-american voter registration in the 1960s. followed by a course on abolition in the early 1800s and proslavery movements. and then the life and work of play right august wilson known for his play "fences." . and a class on the economic policies of the confederacy and how effective they were. television has changed since c-span began 41 years ago but our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. already this year we've brought you primary election coverage, the presidential impeachment
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process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily "washington journal" program or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by private industry as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. and now emery university professor carol anderson teaches about efforts in the early 1960s to register african-american voters in mississippi. she talks about the opposition they faced from segregationists. >> as you know on monday we ended with the freedom rides and those freedom riders were

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