Melvin Starkey HENDERSON
1883–1954
Dr. Melvin Starkey Henderson was born in St.
Paul, Minnesota, in 1883. He received his early schooling in St. Paul and later in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He received the degree of MB from the University of Toronto in 1906, and the degree of MD from the same institution in 1914. He was an intern in the City and County Hospital, St. Paul, from 1906 to 1907. He then went to Rochester to work as clinical assistant to the Mayo brothers.
His interest in their work and the development of the Mayo Clinic never lagged from that time until his death.
During the years 1909–1911, Dr. Henderson worked as a surgical assistant to Dr. William J.
Mayo and his colleagues. In 1910, looking to the future, Dr. Henderson felt that, in as much as he had always been interested in orthopedic surgery, perhaps a section devoted to this specialty should be formed in the rapidly growing group. Such a move was proposed to the group, who, after due consideration, approved the idea.
Recognizing the developing specialty of orthopedic surgery, the Mayo brothers sent Dr.
Henderson to Liverpool to work under Sir Robert Jones and to visit Sir Harold Stiles in Edinburgh, during the year 1911. He returned to Rochester and resumed charge of organizing and directing the section of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic. Thus, Dr. Henderson’s experience was in a way unique in that he planned and organized and developed a section of orthopedic surgery in a rapidly growing clinic devoted to group
practice of medicine. Furthermore, he was vitally interested and took a very active part in the organization of graduate training at this institution under the auspices of the Graduate School, Uni- versity of Minnesota, and was actively interested in the early development of the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery.
Dr. Henderson contributed much to the growing specialty of orthopedic surgery. His outstanding efforts were in the treatment of fractures, particularly bone-grafting procedures for ununited fractures and for fractures of the neck of the femur. He also developed an opera- tion for the treatment of recurrent dislocation of the shoulder, which became widely recognized.
He wrote many papers on internal derangements of the knee joint and other orthopedic subjects.
His work and interest in the development of modern orthopedic surgery can be best illustrated by pointing out the various important posts he held in orthopedic societies. He was Chairman of the Section on Orthopedic Surgery of the American Medical Association in 1920. He was President of the Clinical Orthopedic Society in 1920, of the American Orthopedic Association in 1934, of the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery in 1935, and of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in 1936. He also held memberships in the American College of Sur- geons, the International Society of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology, the American Associ- ation for the Surgery of Trauma, the Western Sur- gical Association, the Minnesota State Medical Association, of which he was President in 1932, and the Southern Minnesota Medical Association, of which he was President in 1918. He was an honorary member of the Societas Orthopedica Scandinavica.
His creed might be quoted from his own Presidential Address to the American Orthopedic Association in 1934: “We as specialists must ever be on the alert to acquire knowledge pertaining to our specialty, and to assimilate, digest, and make use of new facts, thus acquiring that elusive some- thing called wisdom.”
Dr. Henderson died on June 17, 1954.
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