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Governor
dedicates DPH lab in memory of Dr. William A. Hinton
~ Was longtime
resident of town ~
By Mary Ann Price
Citizen Staff
Governor
Deval Patrick officially dedicated the Department of Public
Health’s State Laboratory Institute on April 28 in honor of Dr.
William A. Hinton. The lab will now be known as the Dr. William
A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute. Dr. Hinton was a Canton
resident who owned a home at 154 Dedham Street until his death
in 1959.
 William
Hinton was born in 1883 in Chicago to parents who were former
slaves. He finished high school at the age of 16 and attended
the University of Kansas, finishing the pre-med program in two
years instead of three. He transferred to Harvard University and
earned a bachelor’s degree in 1905.
Hinton had
been interested in becoming a doctor since studying biology in
high school, but did not have the money to attend medical
school. He taught biology, chemistry and physics at colleges in
Tennessee and Oklahoma for the next four years.
Hinton was
offered a scholarship reserved for African American students in
1909, but instead of accepting it, he chose to compete for a
scholarship open to all students, the Wigglesworth Scholarship.
He won the scholarship two years in a row. Hinton finished the
Harvard medical program in just three years instead of the usual
four. He received his M.D. in 1912 with honors.
Hinton was
denied an internship because of his race and instead worked for
the Wasserman Laboratory, which at that time was part of the
Harvard Medical School. In the mornings he was a volunteer
assistant in the Department of Pathology of the Massachusetts
General Hospital. At the Wasserman Laboratory, Hinton began
teaching serological techniques. Dr. Hinton served as assistant
director of the Division of Biologic Laboratories and chief of
the Wasserman Laboratory when it was transferred from Harvard to
the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (1915). During
those years, he began to work on a blood test to determine if a
patient was infected with syphilis, a test that would become
known as the Hinton Test. The test was used for over 20 years.
From 1921 to
1946, Hinton served as instructor in bacteriology and immunology
at Harvard and as lecturer until 1949 when he was promoted to
the rank of clinical professor. Dr. William A. Hinton was the
first African American to become a professor at Harvard Medical
School in its 313 years. He retired in 1950 with the status of
professor emeritus. He also taught at Simmons College and Tufts
University.
Hinton and
his wife, the former Ada Hawes, raised two daughters and spent a
great deal of time in the gardens of their home. On an icy day
in November of 1940, Dr. Hinton was on his way to Cambridge when
his car skidded on the pavement and hit a stone wall. He
survived the accident, but lost his right leg.
In addition
to his research, teaching and laboratory work, Dr. Hinton is
remembered for developing a program to train women as laboratory
technicians at the Boston Dispensary in the South End. He died
in Canton in 1959. The serology laboratory in the state-operated
Institute at South Street in Jamaica Plain was named in his
memory in 1975.
Canton
Historical Commission Chairman Wally Gibbs has collected
articles and information on Dr. Hinton’s life and career. “He
deserves to be recognized,” he said of the April 2008 ceremony.
“He was an unsung hero.”
June 19, 2008
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