Tours
Dr. Arthur C. Guyton Exhibit and Library
"What other subject matter is more fascinating, more exciting, more beautiful than the subject of life?"
– Dr. Arthur C. Guyton, 1975
Dr. Arthur Clifton Guyton was a medical giant, not only here at UMMC, but across the globe. He was born in Oxford, Miss., on Sept. 8, 1919, to the late Dr. and Mrs. Billy S. Guyton. His father - an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist - was also dean of the two-year medical school on the Oxford campus. His mother, Kate, had taught mathematics and physics as a missionary in China.
He graduated from University High School with the highest academic average in his class and entered Ole Miss in 1936, completed his undergraduate work in three years, and again graduated at the top of his class.
As a medical student at Harvard, he attracted the attention of a biochemistry professor with his idea of a way to measure and differentiate ions in solutions. The professor turned over a small lab to the promising young scientists who spent his spare time thereafter pursuing experiments which caught his imagination.
In the middle of his senior year in medical school, he and his future wife Ruth Weigle began a serious courtship which culminated in marriage on June 12, 1943. Ruth, whose father was dean of Yale University Divinity School, was a recent graduate of Wellesley College and taught at Pine Manor Junior College in Wellesley.
He began a surgical internship at Massachusetts General Hospital shortly after his marriage. His training was interrupted by a call to serve in the U.S. Navy at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and later at Camp Detrick, Md., where his work earned him an Army Commendation Citation.
After World War II ended, he returned to Massachusetts General to complete his residency. Less than a year later, he was stricken with polio which would leave his right leg and shoulder paralyzed.
During a nine-month recovery at Warm Springs, Ga., he designed a special leg brace, a hoist for moving patients from bed to chair to bathtub, and a motorized wheelchair controlled by an electric "joy stick." For these devices he received a presidential citation.
In 1947, the Guytons moved back to Oxford where he taught pharmacology in the two-year medical school. In 1948, he was named chairman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics.
His now famous and widely used textbook, Textbook of Medical Physiology, had its beginnings in Oxford. He decided that the text the students were using was unsatisfactory, and he began reading in diverse areas of physiology. In summarizing his reading, he wrote handouts for each section of the course and realized he had the core of a complete textbook.
In the decades since, the textbook has become the best-selling physiology text in the world and quite possibly the most widely used medical textbook of any kind. It is in its 14th edition since its first printing in 1956. The text is used by medical schools around the world and has been translated into at least 24 languages.
Dr. John Hall, the Arthur C. Guyton Professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, began working with him on the textbook revisions more than 35 years ago. Hall and his son, Dr. Michael E. Hall, Lehan Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at UMMC, edited the latest version.
In describing Dr. Guyton’s profound and long-lasting effect on the study and practice of medicine, Dr. Hall comments, “There have been 10 presidents of the American Physiological Society, and Dr. Guyton trained five of them. We have three former presidents and one president-elect of the American Physiological Society at the university now. And many more of our colleagues at UMMC have been leaders of other professional organizations, such as the American Heart Association, and internationally recognized for their research as well as for training the next generation of researchers.”
Dr. John Hall celebrated 50 years of research and teaching at UMMC in 2024.
The Arthur C. Guyton Research Building
The Arthur C. Guyton Research Building, completed in 2008, more than doubled UMMC’s existing research space, adding 192,000 square feet. Artist Marshall Bouldin, III, (1923 – 2012) named by the New York Times “the South’s foremost portrait painter,” was commissioned to paint Dr. Guyton to mark the occasion.
Bouldin’s oil portraits and other paintings are found in more than 400 art collections across the country. He was the first painter inducted into the National Portrait Artist Hall of Fame of the Portrait Society of America.
Bouldin was born in Dundee in the Mississippi Delta, and, as a child, dreamed of becoming a professional portrait artist; throughout his career, he painted more than 800 individuals, many of whom were internationally known. His subjects included congressmen, senators, governors, and members of presidential families, including former President Nixon’s daughters, Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, and acclaimed writer and Nobel Peace Prize-winner William Faulkner.