In 1945, Drs. William Feldman and H. Corwin Hinshaw completed a 166-day treatment of guinea pigs inoculated with virulent tubercle bacilli. Using recently discovered streptomycin, Feldman and Hinshaw demonstrated the "unquestionable ability of streptomycin to reverse the potentially lethal course of well-established inoculation tuberculosis in guinea pigs, and the relatively low toxicity and corresponding safety of purified streptomycin."

After the pioneering experiment at Mayo, Drs. Feldman and Hinshaw began almost immediately their equally successful study of treating tuberculosis among people with streptomycin at the Mineral Springs Sanatorium in Cannon Falls, Minn. They found that streptomycin was effective in treating a number of different forms of tuberculosis.

Drs. Feldman and Hinshaw are credited with establishing the first disciplined scientific laboratory principles of medical drug evaluation.