Fredrick Arthur Willius (November 24, 1888 – October 19, 1972) was an American research cardiologist and medical historian who was the founding director of the Cardiology section at the Mayo Clinic.
Life
Early life and education
Fredrick Arthur Willius was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Gustav Otto Conrad Willius (November 25, 1831 – September 26, 1924) and his wife Emma (née Klausmeyer, August 30, 1855 – April 26, 1933). Gustav Willius and his brother, Ferdinand, were German immigrants who settled in St. Paul and established themselves in banking and finance. The Willius name (; ) is a latinized form of , and the family, which is originally native to Kassel, has borne it since at least the 18th century.<ref>Staats- und Adreß-Calender auf das Jahr Christi 1780. Waisen- und Findelhaus, Hessen-Kassel, 1780.]</ref> Through his father's family, Willius was a third cousin of the scientist Albert Wigand, the general Adolf von Deines, and the physician Georg Ledderhose. Willius himself never met any of these cousins, but he and Ledderhose corresponded prior to the latter's death, and his uncle Ferdinand actually met General von Deines in Europe, in large part thanks to his position as Prussian Consul in Saint Paul. Emma Klausmeyer's father was Wilhelm Klausmeyer, himself an immigrant from Bavaria, who was a choir director, a pianist, and a member of the board of directors of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Fredrick’s maternal uncle Alfred Klausmeyer was the founder of the Anchor Buggy company, an early American manufacturer of automobiles. Fredrick's early education took place in the public schools of Dayton's Bluff, where he was born and raised. In 1906, shortly after beginning his third year at Mechanic Arts High School, Willius was struck with an attack of acute appendicitis, but when the first operation proved unsuccessful and complications set in, he was operated on by Dr. Arnold Schwyzer on the family's kitchen table, and after a period of convalescence, he was returned to health. Willius credited this experience with inspiring him to pursue medicine, which went firmly against his father's wishes that he study architecture. Despite his father's reluctance, Fredrick graduated from high school with honors, at which point he enrolled in the University of Minnesota, with the intention 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 his third year 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. After graduation, Willius entered into a twelve-month internship at the University Hospital, and in 1915, he began his three-year fellowship in surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Marriage and family
On September 26, 1917, Willius married Stella Mae (née Popple, March 14, 1891 – June 22, 1986), the daughter of Herbert Eugene Popple (January 1858 - October 15, 1935) and Jennie Johnson (née , November 14, 1856 – May 27, 1952). Stella was born and raised on her parents' farm in Stewartville, Minnesota, and moved to Rochester in 1916. Stella's elder sister Corena had married Dr. William Plummer, the brother of Willius' mentor Henry Plummer in 1911, and this connection helped Stella find work at the Mayo clinic, as a technician in the pathology laboratory. It was while working at Mayo that the young couple became acquainted, and they were married shortly after. Their marriage produced three daughters. Jane Eleanor (September 8, 1918 – May 18, 2002) married Rudolph Matas Landry, the grandson and namesake of Dr. Rudolph Matas. Mary Elizabeth (August 6, 1920 – December 11, 2015) Dorothy Corinne (November 19, 1925 -)
Medical career
Willius' arrival in Rochester in 1915 coincided with the inauguration of the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, a collaboration between the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, which enabled him to receive his Master of Science in Medicine through study and work at the clinic, rather than having to return to the medical school in Minneapolis. Entering into his fellowship, Willius was assigned to work with Henry Stanley Plummer, one of the most respected diagnosticians in the country, and it was in working with Plummer that Fredrick realized his interest lay in internal medicine and not surgery, which led to a change of specialty.