Alfred Washington Adson

Alfred Washington Adson (March 13, 1887 – November 12, 1951) was an American physician, military officer, and surgeon. He was in medical practice with the Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Minnesota at Rochester, Minnesota. He was associated with the development of the Section of Neurological Surgery which was first established at Mayo in 1919. He functioned as its chair until 1946. He undertook pioneering neurosurgery and gave his name to a medical condition, a medical sign, a medical diagnostic manoeuvre, and medical instruments.

Alfred Adson was born at Terril, Iowa. His parents Anna B. Adson (1869-1955) and Martin Adson (1864-1955) were both Norwegian immigrant. Adson attained his BSc in 1912 at the University of Nebraska, his M.D. in 1914 from the University of Pennsylvania and MA. in 1918 from the University of Nebraska. As a fellow in surgery, he entered the Mayo clinic in July 1914 where he was invited to develop a section of neurological surgery. He became a substantive member of staff on January 1, 1917.

He was a First Lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps of the US Army in the First World War. After the war, he continued to be head of the Section of Neurological surgery at the Mayo Clinic until 1946 when he was appointed to senior consultant in the same section.

Adson undertook innovative neurosurgery for the treatment of glossopharyngeal neuralgia, Raynaud’s Disease, Hirschsprung's disease and for essential hypertension.

He was a colonel in the US Army Medical Reserve Corps and a fellow of The American College of Surgeons and a member of the International Neurological Association, the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases Inc., the Society of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Western Surgical Association, the Central Neuropsychiatric Association and the Minnesota Society of Neurology and Psychiatry.

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