Philip Showalter Hench (1896-1965) was an American physician and medical researcher. He received his medical training at the United States Army Medical Corps and the University of Pittsburgh. He began working at Mayo Clinic in 1923, later serving as the head of the Department of Rheumatology. With his Mayo Clinic co-worker Edward Calvin Kendall and Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for the discovery of the hormone cortisone, and its application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Hench received many other awards and honors throughout his career. He also had a lifelong interest in the history and discovery of yellow fever. Hench lived to be 69 and died of pneumonia while on vacation in Jamaica.