Philip Showalter Hench

Philip Showalter Hench (1896-1965), American pathologist and Nobel Prize winner who pioneered the study and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, a crippling, inflammatory disease of the joints. Hench and his colleagues developed treatments based on hormones secreted by two of the body's most important glands, the adrenal and pituitary glands. For his research Hench shared the 1950 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with American biochemist Edward C. Kendall and Polish-born Swiss biochemist Tadeus Reichstein.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Hench received his B.S. degree in 1916 from Lafayette College, in Easton, Pennsylvania, and his M.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1920. He entered the Mayo Foundation as a fellow in Medicine in 1921. In 1926 he became the head of a newly organized section of rheumatic diseases at the Mayo Clinic, retiring in 1957.

During the 1930s Hench observed that patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis often improved dramatically after they were stricken with jaundice, a condition caused by excess levels of bilirubin (a product of the liver) in the bloodstream. Similarly, arthritic women who became pregnant also showed improvement in their arthritis symptoms; however, the disease would flare up again following childbirth. Hench reasoned that jaundice and pregnancy had in common some biochemical substance that might work as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. After years of unsuccessful research attempting to locate his 'substance X,' as he called it, Hench came to suspect that the body's adrenal glands might be involved. Sitting atop the two kidneys, the twin adrenal glands release a variety of important hormones, such as those that help the body deal with sudden stress by speeding up the heartbeat. Hench believed that an adrenal hormone, released from the gland's outer part, or cortex, might be the key to an arthritis treatment. His colleague, Edward Kendall, succeeded in synthesizing several of these hormones in the early 1940s. Hench and Kendall's interest settled on one such hormone, which they called compound E. However, the compound was very difficult and expensive to synthesize, and it was not until 1948 that they could test it as a treatment. The results were dramatic: Patients who had been virtually crippled were able to regain movement when they received injections of compound E, which Hench called cortisone. Later research demonstrated that cortisone blocks biochemical processes associated with inflammation. Hench and colleagues had similar success with ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone), a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland in the brain; ACTH regulates the adrenal gland's release of hormones, including cortisone. Unfortunately, both treatments were later observed to be only temporary and to cause dangerous side effects, such as high blood pressure and obesity; doctors now know that these compounds must be used with great care. Nevertheless, Hench and his colleagues had opened a whole new area in the use of hormones, known as corticosteroids, in the treatment of inflammatory disease and other conditions.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Hench received the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award in 1949.