Early life and education Fredrick Arthur Willius was born in
St. Paul, Minnesota, to Gustav Otto Conrad Willius (25 November 1831 – 26 September 1924) and his wife Emma (née Klausmeyer, 30 August 1855 – 26 April 1933). Known in childhood as Fritz, Willius received his early education at Van Buren Elementary School in
Dayton's Bluff. In 1906, shortly after beginning his third year at
Mechanic Arts High School, Willius was struck with an attack of
acute appendicitis. When the first operation proved unsuccessful and complications set in, he was
operated on by Dr. Arnold Schwyzer on the family's kitchen table. Willius later cited this experience as a key influence in his decision to pursue a career in medicine, despite his father's preference that he study architecture. Fredrick graduated from high school with honors, at which point he enrolled in the
University of Minnesota, intending to study medicine. He graduated from the university in 1912 as a Bachelor of Science, and in 1914 as a
Doctor of Medicine. He was a member of
Phi Rho Sigma Medical Society, as well as the
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society. During the final year of his doctorate program at the University of Minnesota, he participated in research with James F. Corbett on the causes and pathology of
diabetes mellitus, for which he was awarded the Rollin E. Cutts Medal for experimental surgery.
Medical career Entering into his fellowship, Willius was assigned to work with
Henry Stanley Plummer, the clinic's resident
diagnostician, who would become a mentor and personal friend. Among his peers in the fellowship program were
S. W. Harrington,
Alfred Washington Adson, Hermon Carey Bumpus, Jr. (son of
Hermon Carey Bumpus), and Stanley J. Seeger, Sr., (father of
Stanley J. Seeger). While in this program, Willius realized his interest lay in
internal medicine and not surgery, which led to a change of
specialty. In addition to his medical training and work at the Clinic, as a
fellow, Willius was also responsible for helping operate the
ambulance service, which at the time consisted of
horse-drawn buggies. Plummer and his colleague John M. Blackford had, in 1914, installed at the Mayo Clinic one of the first
ECG machines in the country, only five years after Alfred Cohn's successful adoption of the technology at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The following year, Willius was appointed first assistant in Medicine, and assigned to work with Blackford and Plummer in the newly established ECG lab. In 1917, he published his first paper with Blackford, on
chronic heart-block, which helped establish his credentials as an expert in the field of echocardiography. Later that year, Blackford left Mayo to help start the
Virginia Mason Medical Center in
Seattle, Washington, at which point Willius was promoted to head of the lab. By 1920, Willius had received his Master of Science in Medicine, and been promoted to Associate in medicine, where his passion for cardiology and diseases of the heart had become apparent. In 1923, Willius was asked by Plummer,
Will Mayo, and
Charles Mayo to organize a new section at the Mayo Clinic:
cardiology. Willius would remain chief of the cardiology section until his retirement in 1945, after which he remained a senior consultant for more than a decade. Willius laid out strict rules for how patients were to be seen in his section: In addition to his clinical duties, Willius was made an instructor at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine (now the
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science) in 1920. In 1922, he was promoted to assistant professor, in 1927 to
associate professor, and in 1945, upon his retirement from practice, to
full professor. As his career advanced, he also developed an interest in the formation and pathology of
thromboses, the therapeutic use of
digitalis, and the effect of
syphilis on the human heart. In 1938, Willius and his colleagues John English and
Joseph Berkson were among the first clinicians to accurately predict a direct link between tobacco smoking and heart disease, and this research later contributed to reversing decades of false information about the dangers of smoking.
Retirement and legacy In retirement, Willius's academic focus shifted from cardiology to the
history of medicine. From
William Harvey to
James B. Herrick, the book reproduced work by fifty-one scholars, scientists, and doctors who contributed to our understanding of the hear and its workings, and who helped make modern cardiology what it is. In addition, the lives of the selected authors are outlined in detail, further explaining the context of their discoveries and their meaning to scholars today. In 1949, along with his writing partner Thomas J. Dry, Willius wrote
A History of the Heart and the Circulation. At once a historical and a medical text, the book explores the intersection between the heart, blood, and medical knowledge, spanning the centuries from ancient times to the present. While of a similar vein to Willius's first volume, this adopts more holistic approach to the study of history, and focuses on exploring and analyzing the trajectory of the science of medicine as a whole, rather than reproducing the works of previous scholars. Willius was elected president of the Minnesota chapter of the
American Heart Association in 1925. His lifelong organizational ties also included the
American Medical Association, the
Minnesota Medical Association, the Olmsted-Fillmore-Houston-Dodge Counties Medical Society, the Southern Minnesota Medical Association, the
American College of Physicians, the
American College of Surgeons, the Minnesota Society for the Study of the Heart and Circulation (President 1925 and 1941), the Central Society for Clinical Research (Charter member), the Central Interurban Clinical Club, the Minnesota Society of Internal Medicine, and the Alumni Association of the Mayo Foundation. A lifelong smoker, Willius suffered from
emphysema for much of his later life, but he died from
bladder cancer on October 19, 1972. In 2012, a group of Mayo Fellows and residents established the Willius Society: A History of Medicine Organization for Mayo Clinic Residents and Fellows, in honor of Dr. Willius and his "appreciation of medical history and the great physicians of ages past, as well as for his dedication to those who would come after him." ==Family and personal life==