SCOUTING YESTERDAY | Canton-grown brothers redefined science, win Nobel Prize

This week in South Dakota history: Sept. 5-11

Canton brothers Dr. Ernest and Dr. John Lawrence. Photos: Wikimedia

Before Canton was just another small town on the South Dakota map, it was home to two brothers whose work would forever alter science, medicine — and even the outcome of global war.

From a Nobel Prize to pioneering cancer treatments, Ernest and John Lawrence carried lessons from their childhood in southeastern South Dakota to laboratories at Yale and Berkeley, where they reshaped the modern world.

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