RT Journal
A1 Asher, Marc A.
A1 Burton, Douglas C.
T1 Reflection: Paul Randall Harrington (1911-1980)
JF The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
JO The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
YR 2011
FD December 21
VO 93
IS 24
SP e151 1
OP 2
DO 10.2106/JBJS.K.01150
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.2106/JBJS.K.01150
AB 
The problem that Harrington faced resulted from the North American poliomyelitis epidemics from 1947 to 1955. At the completion of three years of overseas service as chief of orthopaedics at the U.S. Army's 77th Field Evacuation Hospital, Harrington entered private practice in Houston. In early 1947, he was named head of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis Unit at the Jefferson Davis Hospital. With just nine patients, all in the rehabilitation phase, his time commitment was minimal. However, that summer, increasingly large numbers of patients, most of them children or adolescents, contracted poliomyelitis. Many were destined to develop progressive post-poliomyelitis scoliosis as they grew. Harrington's entirely original way of viewing scoliosis was his focus on asymmetrical loads and growth, which directed his attention toward younger patients with smaller curves and away from arthrodesis. He hypothesized that the scoliosis was due to asymmetrical facet loads that resulted in asymmetrical growth. He devised internal strutting of the spine to remove the asymmetrical loads and thus promote normal growth.