Postponing a medical school education because of lack of funds, he taught the basic sciences at colleges in Tennessee and Oklahoma embryology at Meharry Medical College between 1905 & 1909.While teaching at the Agricultural and Mechanical College in Langston,Oklahoma, he met a school teacher Ada Hawes, whom he married in 1909; they had two daughters.During the summers he continued his studies in bacteriology and physiology at the University of Chicago.
Augustus entered Harvard Medical School in 1909 and was awarded an MD in 1912. Scholarships and part-time work in the Harvard laboratories of Richard C.Cabot and Elmer E. Southhard allowed him to attend medical school and support his family.Because of racial discrimination,Augustus was prevented from gaining internship in a Boston hospital.Unable to acquire the specialty training in surgery that he desired,he turned to the laboratory aspect of medicine.In 1912 he began working part-time as a volunteer assistant in the department of pathology of the Massachusetts General Hospital.During the three years
he spent at Massachusetts General after medical school graduation,he was asked to perform autopsies on all persons known or suspected to have syphilis.He also acquired a paid position as an assistant in the Wassermann Laboratory (the Massachusetts state laboratory for communicable diseases),based at the Harvard Medical School complex.(This laboratory had been named for August Von Wassermann,who devised the first blood serum test for the detection of syphilis in 1906.) Elmer was so impressed by William's knowledge of syphilis that he arranged for him to teach its laboratory diagnostic techniques to Harvard medical students.Within two years of his medical school graduation,William had published his first scientific paper on the serology of syphilis in Milton Joseph Rosenau's Textbook of Preventive Medicine.
In 1915,when the Wassermann Laboratory was transferred from Harvard to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health,William was
appointed assistant director of the Division of Biologic Laboratories and chief of the Wassermann Laboratory.He served as the head of the Wassermann Laboratory for thirty-eight years.At the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (later called Brigham & Women's Hospital) he observed both inpatients and outpatients,correlating serologic tests with the clinical manifestations and treatments of patients with syphilis.For twelve years,from 1915-1927,he immersed himself in the search for a more effective test for syphilis,the Wassermann test and others for syphilis yielded a high perecentage of false-positive results,and many doctors had lost confidence in the Wassermann test.
Because the treatment of syphilis was long,painful,and dangerous,and it
was a seriously debilitating disease,a more accurate test was badly needed.
In 1918 William was appointed instructor of preventive medicine and hygiene at the Harvard Medical School,the beginning of a thirty-four year teaching career at Harvard. In 1921 his instructional responsibilities were expanded to include bacteriology and immunology.
During the 1920s William carried on intensive research on the pathology of venereal diseases.He was responsible for all syphilis testing in Massachusetts and had responsibility for the diagnosis of rabies for the State Division of Animal Husbandry.When Massachusetts
established blood tests for syphilis a requirement for marriage licenses and for mamas before birth,William supervised the expansion of state laboratories from 1910-1917.His laboratories also conducted research
on tuberculosis and influenza for the state.
William's signal,most important contribution to medical science came in
1927,when he perfected what was judged to be the most accurate and
sensitive blood serum test for syphilis.His test drastically reduced the
perecentage of false positives.It also met the requirements of mass screening,q9uick results, simplicity,reputability,and unambiguity.For the next quarter of a century the Hinton test was universally used,replacing
the Wassermann test.Even though the Hinton test was 98 percent accurate, William was not completely satisfied, and he collaborated with John Davies in perfecting his test.By 1931 he had developed an improved version that could be done with smaller amounts of the patent's blood.The Davies Hinton test was adopted as the official test of the disease by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in 1934 the U.S. Public Health Service reported that its evaluation showed the Hinton test to be the best available,using sensitivity and specificity as evaluative standards.
In 1934 William began writing his classic textbook,Syphilis and Its Treatment (1936). In this book,praised in both Europe and the United States,William sought to provide "a clear," simple,relatively complete account of syphilis and its treatment for physicians,public health workers and medical students." The book becameastandard reference
in medical schools and hospitals.Documenting William's years of research and " his experience in clinics with patients and the and the disease from their point of view," it is believed to be the first medical textbook written by an African-American doctor.
Recognition came slowly and late to William.In 1946 he was promoted to the rank of lecturer in bacteriology and immunology at the Harvard Medical School.Three years later,before he retired and twenty-two years after he had developed his first test for syphilis,he was elevated
to the position of clinical professor-the first African American to attain the title of professor at Harvard.
William was a member of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists,the Society of American Bacteriologists,,the American Medical Association,and the American Association for the Advancement
of Science,and a fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society.In 1948 he was elected a life member of the American Social Science Association.He lectured frequently to the medical specialty groups of the National Medical Association.He contributed twenty one medical-scientific articles to professional journals.He also served as a special consultant to the U.S. Public Health Service.
William died in his home in Canton,Massachusetts.In 1974,fifteen years
after his death,when the new State Laboratory Institute Building of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in Boston was dedicated,it was named the William A. Hinton Serology Laboratory.
he spent at Massachusetts General after medical school graduation,he was asked to perform autopsies on all persons known or suspected to have syphilis.He also acquired a paid position as an assistant in the Wassermann Laboratory (the Massachusetts state laboratory for communicable diseases),based at the Harvard Medical School complex.(This laboratory had been named for August Von Wassermann,who devised the first blood serum test for the detection of syphilis in 1906.) Elmer was so impressed by William's knowledge of syphilis that he arranged for him to teach its laboratory diagnostic techniques to Harvard medical students.Within two years of his medical school graduation,William had published his first scientific paper on the serology of syphilis in Milton Joseph Rosenau's Textbook of Preventive Medicine.
In 1915,when the Wassermann Laboratory was transferred from Harvard to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health,William was
appointed assistant director of the Division of Biologic Laboratories and chief of the Wassermann Laboratory.He served as the head of the Wassermann Laboratory for thirty-eight years.At the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (later called Brigham & Women's Hospital) he observed both inpatients and outpatients,correlating serologic tests with the clinical manifestations and treatments of patients with syphilis.For twelve years,from 1915-1927,he immersed himself in the search for a more effective test for syphilis,the Wassermann test and others for syphilis yielded a high perecentage of false-positive results,and many doctors had lost confidence in the Wassermann test.
Because the treatment of syphilis was long,painful,and dangerous,and it
was a seriously debilitating disease,a more accurate test was badly needed.
In 1918 William was appointed instructor of preventive medicine and hygiene at the Harvard Medical School,the beginning of a thirty-four year teaching career at Harvard. In 1921 his instructional responsibilities were expanded to include bacteriology and immunology.
During the 1920s William carried on intensive research on the pathology of venereal diseases.He was responsible for all syphilis testing in Massachusetts and had responsibility for the diagnosis of rabies for the State Division of Animal Husbandry.When Massachusetts
established blood tests for syphilis a requirement for marriage licenses and for mamas before birth,William supervised the expansion of state laboratories from 1910-1917.His laboratories also conducted research
on tuberculosis and influenza for the state.
William's signal,most important contribution to medical science came in
1927,when he perfected what was judged to be the most accurate and
sensitive blood serum test for syphilis.His test drastically reduced the
perecentage of false positives.It also met the requirements of mass screening,q9uick results, simplicity,reputability,and unambiguity.For the next quarter of a century the Hinton test was universally used,replacing
the Wassermann test.Even though the Hinton test was 98 percent accurate, William was not completely satisfied, and he collaborated with John Davies in perfecting his test.By 1931 he had developed an improved version that could be done with smaller amounts of the patent's blood.The Davies Hinton test was adopted as the official test of the disease by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in 1934 the U.S. Public Health Service reported that its evaluation showed the Hinton test to be the best available,using sensitivity and specificity as evaluative standards.
In 1934 William began writing his classic textbook,Syphilis and Its Treatment (1936). In this book,praised in both Europe and the United States,William sought to provide "a clear," simple,relatively complete account of syphilis and its treatment for physicians,public health workers and medical students." The book becameastandard reference
in medical schools and hospitals.Documenting William's years of research and " his experience in clinics with patients and the and the disease from their point of view," it is believed to be the first medical textbook written by an African-American doctor.
Recognition came slowly and late to William.In 1946 he was promoted to the rank of lecturer in bacteriology and immunology at the Harvard Medical School.Three years later,before he retired and twenty-two years after he had developed his first test for syphilis,he was elevated
to the position of clinical professor-the first African American to attain the title of professor at Harvard.
William was a member of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists,the Society of American Bacteriologists,,the American Medical Association,and the American Association for the Advancement
of Science,and a fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society.In 1948 he was elected a life member of the American Social Science Association.He lectured frequently to the medical specialty groups of the National Medical Association.He contributed twenty one medical-scientific articles to professional journals.He also served as a special consultant to the U.S. Public Health Service.
William died in his home in Canton,Massachusetts.In 1974,fifteen years
after his death,when the new State Laboratory Institute Building of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in Boston was dedicated,it was named the William A. Hinton Serology Laboratory.
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