On Sept. 21, 1948, a 28-year-old woman at Saint Marys Hospital (Mayo Clinic) in Rochester, MN received the first injection of Compound E (Cortisone) for rheumatoid arthritis. Three days later there was an astonishing change — less muscular stiffness and soreness.

In 1950, Dr. Edward C. Kendall, a biochemist at Mayo Clinic, was awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine along with Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein and Mayo Clinic physician Philip S. Hench, for their work with the hormones of the adrenal gland.