Percy Lavon Julian was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of drugs used in medicine. The son of a railway mail clerk, he graduated from De Pauw University in 1920 and received graduate degrees from Harvard and the University of Vienna. Julian's synthesis of cortisone for arthritis, a drug for glaucoma, and synthesis of progesterone won him acclaim. In 1990 he was inducted into the prestigious National Inventors Hall of Fame. He died in 1975.