Balfour of the Balfour retractor

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• Donald Church Balfour, MD

• Photograph courtesy of Mayo Clinic Photographic Department

Donald Church Balfour (1882–1963) was born in Toronto, Canada, where he earned his medical degrees. In 1907, following an internship at the Hamilton, Ontario, City Hospital, he joined the founding group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. In 1910 he married Carrie Mayo, the elder daughter of Dr William W. Mayo. In addition to contributing to advances in surgery of the alimentary tract and thyroid, he designed a widely used operating table and devised a self-retaining abdominal retractor still in use (to the relief of a host of junior surgical assistants). His active participation in the operating room was curtailed by debilitating tuberculosis, and from 1933 to his retirement in 1947 he applied his talent to promoting graduate medical education at the Mayo Clinic. In 1956, he was awarded the Julius Friedenwald Medal by the American Gastroenterological Association. Devoted to his family, in his off hours he enjoyed playing a pipe organ installed in the home that was a wedding present from his father-in-law.