{"id":7924,"date":"2016-06-14T19:42:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T23:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7924"},"modified":"2016-06-14T19:42:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T23:42:35","slug":"distinguished-medical-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7924","title":{"rendered":"Distinguished medical care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Odd what you turn up when you\u2019re doing research.<\/strong> I\u2019ve been gathering some information for the seminary at work, and I ran across a name that tripped a memory switch. And thus I learned a little more about a chapter in my own family\u2019s history \u2013 a Walker brush with fame. Or eminence, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>When I was growing up, I often heard stories about the struggles my dad\u2019s family endured. They suffered many shocks, both in finances and health. Dad lost a brother (born with a heart defect) and a sister (died of complications following appendix surgery). And my grandfather suffered all his life from a spinal injury he received as a young man. Through all these travails they were cared for by the family doctor, referred to with hushed respect as \u201cDr. Hanson.\u201d Dr. Hanson, I was told, invented a specialized surgical tool in order to operate on Grandpa\u2019s neck. Grandma saved a letter of condolence he wrote after the death of my aunt. Apparently he did a lot of his work for the Walkers with little payment, or at least with delayed payment. \u201cHe even,\u201d they said, \u201cdiscovered some kind of hormone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s true. He did discover some kind of hormone. I found the record.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Adolph M. Hanson (I can\u2019t find his biographical dates now, but as I recall he died in 1957) was the grandson of Pastor \u00d8sten Hanson, first pastor of my home parish. In 1923, he discovered the parathyroid hormone in his home laboratory in Faribault, Minn. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fasebj.org\/content\/15\/10\/1677e.full\">This article<\/a> tells about it.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of these scientists was Adolph Hanson, a small-town doctor from Minnesota who conducted his experiments in a makeshift lab in the basement of his home. Hanson reported in 1923 that, using cattle parathyroid glands he had collected from a slaughterhouse, he had isolated the active compound from the parathyroids that can prevent the convulsions that occur when these glands are removed from dogs. The renowned Canadian biochemist James B. Collip independently isolated the same active extract in 1925\u2026\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My late great-aunt told me that one of her sisters had made a concerted effort to get Dr. Hanson as a husband, but he failed to succumb.<\/p>\n<p>I may have even met him. I expect he would have attended Grandpa\u2019s funeral. But I don\u2019t remember him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Odd what you turn up when you\u2019re doing research. I\u2019ve been gathering some information for the seminary at work, and I ran across a name that tripped a memory switch. And thus I learned a little more about a chapter in my own family\u2019s history \u2013 a Walker brush with fame. Or eminence, anyway. When &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7924\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Distinguished medical care<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[797,2135,3292],"class_list":["post-7924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dr-adolph-m-hanson","tag-parathyroid-gland","tag-walker-family"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}