Jonathan Hughes Horne, Holladay, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, February 21, 2010

Transcript (24 pages) of interview by Becky B. Lloyd with Jonathan Hughes Horne on February 21, 2010

Horne (b. 1935) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He contracted polio at age 4, and tells what he remembers about getting sick, experiencing nausea and a painful headache. He was treated at home and was immobilized in bed for several days with paralysis in all four limbs. He recalls receiving spinal taps. His father, a physician, arranged for gamma globulin to be shipped into Salt Lake from California and Jonathan received several intrathecal injections. He feels this contributed to his recovery. His house was quarantined and he remembers seeing people cross the street as they neared his house and cross back again once they had passed. He recalls no other specific treatment or therapy, but continually improved until regaining movement in all limbs, with only residual weakness in his leg muscles, which continue to the present. He reports no incidence of recognizable post-polio syndrome. He led an active live and became an orthopedic surgeon operating in the Salt Lake Valley area. Polio Oral History Project. Interviewer: Becky Lloyd

JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE Holladay, Utah An Interview By Becky B. Lloyd February 21, 2010 Polio Oral History Project Tape No. u-3009 American West Center Marriott Library Special Collections Department University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah THIS IS AN INTERVIEW WITH JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE ON FEBRUARY 21, 2010. THE INTERVIEWER IS BECKY B. LLOYD. THIS IS THE POLIO ORAL HISTORY PROJECT. TAPE No. u-3009. BBL: This is an interview with Dr. Jonathan Horne at his home in Holladay, Utah. Today’s date is February 21, 2010. This is part of the Polio Oral History project that is supported through the Utah Medical Association. My name is Becky Lloyd. Dr. Horne, let’s start with when and where you were born. JHH: I was born in Salt Lake City at the LDS Hospital, October 25, 1935. BBL: Tell me who your parents were. JHH: My father was Dr. Lyman M. Horne. He was an obstetrician in Salt Lake City. My mother was a RN. BBL: What was her name? JHH: Myrtle Swainston Horne. BBL: So your father was an OB-GYN. That’s a famous name. JHH: Itis. BBL: He’s well-known. JHH: Yes. He was very well-known. Delivered 18,000 or so babies in Salt Lake City. BBL: That’s incredible. He’s deceased? JHH: He’s deceased. He died in 1985. He graduated from the University of Utah and went to Columbia University Medical School in New York City. From my understanding—I haven’t done extensive research—he was the first OB-GYN to have a residency program. He took a residency program in Brooklyn Hospital with a Dr. Palmer. Apparently he was quite well-known in the East at the time and practiced what at that time would be an OB-GYN specialty. Everybody was a doctor of everything. Just like JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 I’m an orthopedic surgeon, I was trained as an orthopedic surgeon of everything, arm, legs, back, and now days everybody is ankle, knee, hip, shoulder, hand. But I’ve done everything in orthopedics to a full extent and my dad was like a doctor of everything, but OB-GYN in particular. So he took out tonsils; he took out my tonsils when I was young, I remember. BBL: Hopefully not at home in the kitchen. JHH: In his office (laughs) with ether, putting a mask on my face. I can remember taking a ride through the universe and stars and stripes. And [ can remember the anesthetic. BBL: Where did you live when you were growing up? JHH: We lived on 868 Second Avenue initially. And then over on 15™ East by Uinta School and went to Wasatch School to begin with and then came back and went to Stewart Junior High School. BBL: I’ve never heard of that. JHH: Well, it’s a long-time and recently closed junior high. Actually it was an experimental full school from kindergarten through junior high at the University of Utah. It was run by the University of Utah and it was actually quite a famous school. There’s books put out about all the famous people—me not being one of them—but really famous people, well-known people who are graduates of Stewart Junior High School and Stewart School at the University of Utah. Then I went to East High, University of Utah, graduated from Cornell Medical School. I did a residency in Chicago Presbyterian, St. Luke’s Hospital, then back at the LDS Hospital and Primary Children’s Hospital here in Salt JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 Lake. I’ve been in practice in the greater Salt Lake County/Bountiful area in orthopedics since 1968. BBL: Are you still practicing now? JHH: I"d have to say yes. I closed my single private practice in 2005. Since then I have volunteered at the Murray, Utah, Maliheh Free Clinic as the full-time orthopedic surgeon there, and I do some locum tenens work. I have practiced locum tenens in Durango, Colorado, and Washington, Tooele, Utah, and Fort Morgan, Colorado. BBL: That sounds fun and interesting. That’s interesting. How many children did your parents have? JHH: Eight. I was the youngest. They had three sets of twins and I was the youngest of the twins, the third set. BBL: Wow, that’s unusual, isn’t it? That had to be some kind of a record. JHH: Well, he was kind of known to be the twin doctor. I don’t know if there was anything else that actually contributed to that or not. BBL: That’s interesting. So is there a history of twins in your family? JHH: I have a set of twins. BBL: You do? JHH: I’m the only person in my family, of siblings, who’s had a set of twins of my own. So I tell them I’'m the only real and honest twin in the family. But I’'m the youngest. Then there are some other twins that have occurred. There are two different kinds of twins, as you know, fraternal and ... we were probably fraternal, my twin and I. The ones that were identical, I have a set of older sisters that probably are identical. My twins were identical. But identical twins are just an accident and fraternal twins apparently have a JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 slightly increased probability from generation to generation. If you are a fraternal twin you have about a three and a half to four percent chance of having a set of twins. If you're identical, you have about a two percent of having twins. The average is about 1.5 percent in the general population. I think it’s slightly higher in twins, about double in fraternal twins. BBL: That is something. So you told me that you contracted polio at age four. Is that right? JHH: Yes; 1939. I actually remember it quite well. BBL: What do you remember about getting sick? JHH: Our family was out in either Tooele County or someplace out towards the Great Salt Lake desert, towards Wendover. My father took us out to watch model airplanes flying and I remember that quite well because I was even making model airplanes when I was four and not quite sufficiently good to actually compete. But we went out to see some small airplanes being flown and I remember getting very nauseated and throwing up and having a horrible headache and it kind of cut the party short, the activity. And we all piled back into my dad’s Chrysler limousine he had for all of us eight kids—he always had a Chrysler limousine—we piled back in the car. And I remember getting really sick and I really don’t remember much more, even on the ride home. But [ remember the days after when I was recuperating of being paralyzed and only being able to look at the ceiling and watching spiders on the ceiling that were crawling around. And I remember my dad and Dr. Cheney, who was a pediatrician—I don’t know his first name—rolling me over and giving me spinal taps. My dad told me that I was the first one to receive gamma globulin in Salt Lake City. Cutter Laboratories JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 had announced the gamma globulin as a new product for infection control and he decided to try it on me. He said [ was the first person in Salt Lake to receive intrathecal gamma globulin. I’'m not sure if that’s absolutely true, but my dad told me I was the first person to get it. At least apparently I was the first person they tried it on with injected intrathecally. But they injected some gamma globulin intrathecally in my spinal canal every day apparently, or every few days. I remember it happening quite a few times. And then [ actually started being able to move. I was paralyzed for a period of time, several days or a week, apparently. I can’t remember all the days, but I remember being given spinal taps during that time when I couldn’t actually contest having a spinal tap, which I didn’t like. They’d roll me over and give me a spinal tap. The gamma globulin was flown by Western Airlines in from Los Angeles in ice; the flight also stopped at Las Vegas and then flew into Salt Lake. Dad said he was very concerned about making certain that it was still frozen because the plane would stop in Las Vegas and only take off again when the plane was full. They didn’t have rigid schedules. I think probably the gamma globulin injections participated significantly to my recovery from polio. BBL: Do you? JHH: Looking back at the history, and I’ve used gamma globulin for a lot of things, it still is a really good product. It’s hard to get a hold of now because the armed forces takes most of it. I actually keep some gamma globulin in my freezer to give to myself and my family, my children, when they have infections and it helps every kind of infection because it has the ingredients of the antibodies. I can see why it probably helped my polio. I suspect. Who knows? JONATHAN BBL: HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 Was that Dr. Cheney who suggested that or was that your father? Or do you know? JHH: My dad said it was he that suggested it. He started using it in his practice a lot, he said, after he used it on me. Years after that. He was a great proponent of gamma globulin. And he passed that onto me (laughs). I am too. It’s hard to get a hold of, though. What’s interesting, you go to pharmacies now and want to get some gamma globulin, it’s not illegal by any means or not like it’s a Class II rated drug, but they said, “You want gamma globulin? For what?” It’s kind of been forgotten. Or else it’s so hard to get a hold of and it’s quite expensive, about twenty-five dollars a cc, so I think it’s just not being used very much because the Army and the armed forces use it so much, evidently. BBL: That’s interesting. So your thought is that you received these shots until you were through the acute phase of the illness? JHH: Yes. I don’t remember getting it after [ actually became well, when I was up walking and moving. BBL: So you recall being paralyzed. Was that arms and legs? JHH: Yes. BBL: And you recall that that lasted several days, maybe a week? JHH: I’ve been told it was about a week, that’s what I’ve been told. BBL: So I guess presumably by that time the fever was over. JHH: Yes, I think the first few days I probably don’t remember fever, per se, but I remember getting sick in the car, or sick on this little outing we were on and throwing up and getting a terrible headache and getting back in the car. But I don’t remember the ride JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 home, actually. And I don’t remember the details of the next few days. I remember being awake and watching the spiders on the ceiling after a few days, whenever that was. BBL: So you were treated at home? JHH: Yes. BBL: You didn’t go to a hospital? JHH: I was treated at home. So [ apparently, obviously, didn’t have pulmonary respiratory paralysis, but arm and leg paralysis. BBL: So once the fever broke and you were feeling better, were you not paralyzed then? Or what was your condition like after that? JHH: I don’trecall a fever, per se, but after my initial recovery, I had a little weakness that’s persisted in the anterior tibial muscles of my legs. So I’ve never been able to run for long distances and climb. I’m not good climbing. I can’t go climb a mountain very comfortably. BBL: It starts to hurt? JHH: My leg anterior tibial muscles become weak easily. And when I run, they become weak. I’'m just fine for short distance runs and walking, it doesn’t bother me one bit. But if I try to run long distances, or even blocks or a half mile or a mile, the anterior tibial muscles become weak. I’ve tried actually to even build up an ability to run and it doesn’t work very well. I can’t seem to build up a long-distance running ability. BBL: That’s amazing, then. After this time when you were paralyzed, what you remember is you emerged from this acute phase with just some weakness in your left ... JHH: In both legs. In my anterior tibial muscles of both legs, but they’re not like paralyzed; it’s just weaker than the rest of the muscles. Apparently that’s quite a JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 common, the anterior tibial muscles of the legs are quite commonly paralyzed, a combination of those and other muscles, with polio. BBL: Do you remember receiving any other kind of therapies? Did you have any hot packs or massaging? JHH: I don’t remember any of that. BBL: We didn’t have hot tubs, but did they put you in warm baths? JHH: Didn’t have any hot tubs. No. I don’t remember any of that. I don’t think I had anything like that, or physical therapists. At least I don’t recall it at all and I think I probably would, but I’'m not absolutely certain, but [ don’t recall anything like that. I never did go to the hospital. BBL: That’s pretty amazing, I would say, and that’s unusual. JHH: I think it’s pretty amazing. My brain got a little bit paralyzed. BBL: (laughs) You think so? JHH: My memory, [ think it harmed my memory. [’'m just kidding. BBL: So you continued on with life after that. You don’t remember doing any sort of therapy at all? JHH: Idon’t. BBL: Did you have trouble walking at first? JHH: I can remember a period of it being very slow for a period of time and I can’t remember how long that would have been. Except I remember going to school, walking on Second Avenue, walking to school the next year and back and playing and so forth. They quarantined our house, I remember that. I remember events like, for example, just as a little point of humor, I remember watching out the window of my house when I was JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 in recuperating stage, when I was actually feeling better and moving around, and watching the kids. They’d come down the street, cross the street and go to the other side of the street past our house, because we had a quarantine sign on it, and then coming back again the next house or two down, back onto our side of the street again. So the kids would cross the street to miss our house (laughs). BBL: Did you have any thoughts at the time, feeling bad? JHH: No, I was actually just watching it and I look back at it now and I think it’s funny. It’s just interesting what people do. BBL: Did you ever talk to your parents about that? Was there more stigma associated with your illness that maybe you weren’t aware of at the time? JHH: Well, I don’t recall any other stigma really, except for that. Except they did send all my brothers and sisters to someplace else. They stayed at other relatives homes. BBL: They farmed everybody out? JHH: Everybody was farmed out except for my mother, who was a nurse. And I remember my oldest sister, Harriet, coming back in to help at some time when I was recuperating. But I don’t know if she was there through my acute phase and treatment. BBL: You remember her coming back? JHH: Iremember my older sisters, Marilyn, Carolyn and Harriett, actually feeding me ice cream and milk in small spoonfuls when I really couldn’t eat very much. I well remember the daily ice cream a lot, when I was actually in the recuperative stage, before I was really moving a lot. I think there was a period of time when they were farmed out to other areas, they told me. But I remember them actually being there when I was still 10 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 recuperating to some degree and I think still quite weak and, like I say, they were feeding me ice cream and so forth. So I remember some of them helping. BBL: And getting a nice treat, ice cream. JHH: Yes. BBL: Did anybody else in your family get polio? JHH: No. BBL: Anybody else on your street or neighborhood? JHH: I’m not aware of it. [ have never heard that there were other people on our street or in our neighborhood. I often thought, let’s see, how could I have contracted it? I remember that we used to go out to the Wasatch Springs when [ was real young, before I got sick. We used to go out and swim at the Wasatch Springs pool, which was on Beck Street and about 5™ North or thereabouts, and I think they closed it. My recollection is— I’d have to look back to see if there’s a history on it—but my recollection is they closed it after the polio or sometime shortly after the polio epidemics of 39 or *40. My recollection is there seemed to be a suggestion in Salt Lake that there was a connection between going to the Wasatch Springs pools and getting polio, which may have been. It’s hard to know. It’s a possibility. BBL: You say you’ve thought back now and that’s what you think could be possible? JHH: My mother used to take us out there swimming quite often when I was real young, before I got sick, and that was kind of the event place to go. And I’m not certain if that also included after I was sick, that I used to go out there and swim. I’d have to look into that because it closed when I was still young. I remember the Wasatch Springs pools on Beck Street. That might be something we could probably look into. 11 JONATHAN BBL: HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 Did you ever talk to your parents about this after, at any point, and did they have any theories about how maybe they thought you had been exposed? JHH: No. I don’t remember them ever talking about it. I remember thinking about it and I’ve thought that possibly it could be Wasatch Springs because I went out there. And this may sound really awful, but I can remember when I was young, real young, that down IStreet that there was always water running in the gutter and we kids were out there playing in the street and playing ball and running up and down the street and doing things and [ would lean over into the gutter and drink out of the gutter (laughs). BBL: Is that right? JHH: Yes. When I was real young. I look back and I think, maybe that’s where I got it (laughs). I’'m horrified now at the thought. BBL: Well, as a kid, there was water, you were thirsty; it made sense. JHH: Yes. And I can remember even thinking about it, / hope my mother and dad don't see me doing this (laughs). That seems real awful drinking out of the gutter. But it seemed like real clean water and it was coming out of a hydrant. It probably was actually pretty clean, probably. The thought seems horrible (laughs). And it could be that that’s a connection because I remember doing that when I was real young. I can’t even actually remember whether it was before or after I had polio, but it was when I was very young, out playing in the street with the other kids. BBL: So life went on. You started school; you went through elementary school all the way through junior high at Stewart. Then East High School. You’ve already said that you’ve never been able to really run long distances or for a long period of time. Did that fact interfere at all with your schooling, sports or anything? 12 JONATHAN JHH: HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 Not really, no. I played baseball a lot, but you didn’t have to run long distances to play baseball. And I was a good hitter. BBL: Were you on the school team? JHH: I never went out for... [ was too short, too small. I didn’t grow my height until I was finishing high school. But when [ was in grade school, I must say I think I was the best hitter in my class, as far as coordinated hitting, I was a good hitter. Not very good at catching a ball on the run, but hitting I was good. I wasn’t nearly as good a fielder as I was a hitter. But I think that had nothing to do with having any weakness in my legs, because I didn’t even notice it. [ never noticed it unless I was trying to run a long distance. I’d get a drop foot that was the problem if I’d start running long distances. I’d stumble and get a drop foot because of the weakness of my anterior tibial muscles. It’s a good excuse, anyway, for not running. BBL: It works. JHH: Yes, it works for me. BBL: Would you say, then, that having had polio didn’t interfere with any of the activities you wanted to do or inhibit you in any way? JHH: Not really. No. I’d have to say no. On a daily life, not one bit ofa problem. Of course, I’m a surgeon so I do hand surgery and microsurgery and fix tendons and nerves and [have] done all those things. So I don’t have any weakness or uncoordination of hands or arms. BBL: That is amazing. And your thought is it’s the gamma globulin that made that difference? 13 JONATHAN JHH: HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 Who knows, but I am convinced philosophically that it probably made a big difference. Seems like it did. BBL: That’s a different outcome than most people had who were that far paralyzed, all four limbs. JHH: That’s my understanding and my experience as an orthopedic surgeon. It’s interesting I didn’t specialize in polio or those kinds of diseases. I kind of moved toward trauma and other phases of orthopedics. Of course, orthopedics grew up, initially started as a specialty of treating people like polio and people with spastic problems and then moved to the trauma and what we consider orthopedics now, because even when I came out in practice, the general surgeons, by and large, were treating fractures. And that’s another story, but my point is that I didn’t go into rehab kind of treatment. [ wasn’t sucked into that by the fact that I had polio or weakness of my leg. BBL: I’'m wondering, did the fact that you had polio even remain in your consciousness at all? JHH: Yes, it did. I think, yes, it’s been a constant reminder that [ am very grateful, especially as a doctor and an orthopedic surgeon, not to have been more severely paralyzed. It’s remarkable that I did as well as I did. And I look back on it as a little mini miracle, if anything, especially with the stories and the historical review of polio sequelae that I’ve studied and observed. I am so amazingly grateful that I didn’t have that kind of problem develop in my arms and legs, with permanent paralysis or partial paralysis like so many people have. Recently there have been reports of a resurgence of problems in recent years, referred to as the post-polio syndrome. I don’t seem to have or have had any 14 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 kind of experience of exacerbation of polio symptoms personally in my body. So I look back and I think I had a little miraculous life, actually. It could have been so different. BBL: Was your family a religious family? JHH: Oh, yes, very much so. Of course there are all kind of stories about holding prayer circles and things like that and who know what part that makes. BBL: Do you recall as a four-year-old sensing that this was a traumatic thing, sensing it in the grownups around you and your other family members that this was a very serious event, your sickness? JHH: Well, yes, because I don’t remember experiencing any pain except when they rolled me over and stuck needles in my back (laughs). And now every time [ do or order a spinal tap I think of it, I think of myself being rolled over and having a needle put in my back, so actually it gave me an interesting perspective as a doctor. BBL: More empathy. What drew you to go into medicine? JHH: Well, I think several things. One is my dad was a doctor and so [ had an experience with that. He would take me down to his office and I helped clean his office when I was young and then I’d go to the hospital with him. My mother was a nurse so [ was around the medical environment a lot. But it’s interesting I was drawn to it from the time I was early on in junior high school, that I felt like I wanted to be a doctor. As far as what kind of a doctor I didn’t really appreciate the differences in all of the various specialties that were available and they’ve, of course, increased since that time. But when I was in high school and college to be what kind of a doctor, I wasn’t actually particularly drawn to gynecology. My dad was a gynecologist and I never really had a draw for that. Maybe it’s because I ran into him coming up the stairs looking worn 15 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 out as I was leaving to go to school many mornings. He’s dragging up the front steps of the house in his greens and I'm thinking, I don’t want to do that (laughs). And it turns out he’s coming home after delivering a baby. As it turns out it’s a perfect fit for me in my capabilities and my experience. [ used to make furniture when I was [young]. I had a lot of power equipment and drill presses and power saws, and a jigsaw, and things like that. I made furniture and various other pieces, like rocking chairs that I made for my family, that I gave to my brothers’ and sisters’ kids and so forth. Then in college I had a little job where I’d go out and lay flagstone for people’s yards and build walls and lay flagstone. So it’s chipping and power cutting and all that just fell into orthopedics. And I graduated in sculpture from the University of Utah, a minor in sculpture. Some of the pieces around in here are mine. My dad out in the other room there and so forth. Do you want to see it? BBL: Sure. JHH: These are Avard Fairbanks’. He was my mentor at the University of Utah. [leave room] JHH: Anyway, my point is [ was drawn into medicine, but I just fell precipitously into orthopedics. Once I got into medical school and then my residency program, having some experience in orthopedics, fixing fractures, the mechanics of it, putting screws in, drilling bones, put in screws and tapping and rodding femurs and fixing tendons, it was very mechanical and very obvious what you need to do. And the connection with the anatomy, 16 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 sculpture, which I learned in college, with anatomy classes in sculpture. Except in my sculpture classes, human anatomy wasn’t taught in my college experience. So all of that directed me right into orthopedics. It was just like going to the toy store every day, orthopedics, for me. It’s fun and interesting and challenging and everything’s new. Every fracture’s different. It’s not like delivering babies or taking out gall bladders, where as far as I’'m concerned, it’s the same thing every day. Orthopedics, you have to be so inventive. It’s like making furniture. It’s like fixing a broken leg on a piece of furniture so it doesn’t look ugly and you can’t see the screws, you can’t see the plate, can’t see the drill holes and that kind of thing. At least for me, coming back to polio, maybe I actually even had a little eschewing away from the rehab polio paralysis aspect of orthopedics. I think I was actually shunned by it psychologically because it actually terrorized me a little bit. I’'m not sure that the word terrorizing is [right]. It was toward that direction. I could have been like this and I have a hard time dealing with it mentally. I feel so sorry for these people that [ have a hard time dealing with it. So I moved into the trauma, actual physical fixation portion of putting in hip joints and new knees and trauma, primarily in orthopedics, as my interest. But then I think that fell also from my sculpture, my stone cutting and furniture building. BBL: That’s interesting. You said you attended medical school at Cornell? JHH: That’s in New York City. BBL: Then a residency in Chicago and then came back here? JHH: At the LDS Hospital and Primary Hospital residency. I’ve been in practice in Salt Lake ever since 1968. 17 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 BBL: Did you or do you do pediatric orthopedics, too? JHH: Well, yes, when I started out. In Salt Lake City there are two pediatric orthopedic hospitals: Shriners Hospital and Primary Children’s Hospital. I was on the staff of Primary Children’s Hospital until 1972, then I moved out to Cottonwood Hospital. When I was presented with a complex really young patient, I sent them to the primary Hospital. In 1968 I joined the Cottonwood Hospital staff when I came out to practice, but I was also on the staffs of Bountiful, Jordan Valley, LDS Hospital and the Primary Children’s Hospital. BBL: So you had privileges all over, then. JHH: But I kind of eventually migrated out to south Salt Lake County hospitals and I moved towards treating trauma. So I treated a lot of children’s trauma fractures; this included fractured arms, legs, so forth. But anything that was rehabilitative type of orthopedics, I sent it up to the Primary Children’s Hospital or Shriners Hospital because that’s what they did all the time. I moved to the trauma and the regular orthopedic medical care of pediatrics and adult orthopedics in my practice. So even now when I go to work in Colorado or someplace else, I’ll still take care of children’s fractures and I’'m very experienced and comfortable with trauma. But I don’t treat any of the chronic rehab children’s problems and I haven’t done, really, basically, for forty years. BBL: So at any point, before you made that transition, did you have patients who had had polio, but yet were starting to have some now new problems or additional problems and came to an orthopedist for help? JHH: Yes, of course. I definitely saw people who had had polio or had some problems that were post-polio problems. But anything that was kind of major I’d still send it up to 18 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 the Primary Hospital. Like if [ was presented with a patient with a fractured arm or leg, if the patient didn’t have some sequelae of polio, I would care for those problems. If I saw someone in the emergency room that had a short leg and had had multiple tendon transplants because of weakness, I would have a tendency to splint that leg and send them up to the Primary or the Shriners Hospital because they may have been treated there before, or their problems were complicated because of the polio problems. And because of the polio problems and the previous surgeries they may have had a special problem that would be inherently better treated by the people who do the treatment for polio, especially if they’ve had some muscle and tendon transplants. BBL: Sure, that makes sense. Did you do emergency, in the emergency room, if they had a trauma call and somebody came in? JHH: Yes, that was actually my mainstay. BBL: So you ended up getting some of those all night calls that you said your dad would come staggering home in the morning after having been out all night. JHH: Yes, I treated many “all night” injuries. In orthopedics, yes, there’s a lot of trauma that occurs at night and yes, you do have to go out and take care of it. BBL: Were you involved at TOSH? Did you have an office there when they formed The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital? JHH: I’'m pre-TOSH. I was before TOSH was a thought in their mother’s mind. So I worked at Cottonwood Hospital, then TOSH came along. I think TOSH came along in mid-80’s or late-80’s. They do good work there. They’re good doctors; they do good work. BBL: Do you have any children? 19 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE JHH: 21 FEBRUARY 2010 I have seven children. None of them have had polio or anything like it. A pretty healthy bunch of kids, actually. The biggest pro.blem is they don’t listen to their dad. BBL: You probably didn’t listen to your dad either, right? You have grandchildren? JHH: Twenty-two grandkids. BBL: No greats yet? JHH: No greats. They’re all great, but not in the genealogical sense. BBL: Do you have any other thoughts about polio? You told me you’re involved with Rotary. JHH: I was going to say, yes as a member of the Murray Rotary Club, I joined a group of, not only this Rotary Club, but became a member of an International Rotary Club group that was specifically interested in eradicating polio internationally and donated a lot of time and money towards the world eradication of polio. The International Rotary Club, along with the United Nations has come to a point where they’re almost eradicating polio, period. It’s an amazing thing that you can take something like a horrendous disease that sixty years ago was the fear of the world, the fear of the community, especially when September, October rolled around every year, to the point where people hardly even know what polio is or hardly even know of it. This is a marvelous advancement that the world could eradicate such a horrible disease. We are going to be achieving it in the next decade. But it’s a great concept that polio eradication is probably going to be achieved in the next few years and that’s going to be an historical asterisk, which is nice, which is wonderful. 20 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 [If you] go back to the 1950’s, there were medical journals that were all about polio. Like in the 1940’s and ‘30’s there were huge multi journals about syphilis and along comes penicillin and pretty soon all these people who were specializing in syphilis haven’t got a job even and were worldwide famous doctors. But polio has come to that same area where there’s almost no interest in it, medically or internationally. BBL: That’s true. JHH: I talk to my kids about polio and you can get their attention on it for about ten seconds. They don’t really care or, “Oh, so you had polio. Okay, what else is going on, Dad? What are we doing today?”” And that’s okay, that’s good because it’s eradicated the fear. There was a terrible fear that occurred—I don’t know how old you are—but even in the °50’s, in the ‘40’s, when September and October were rolling around there was a fear about the annual upsurge of polio. And then you get the polio vaccine and then you have, excuse me, a few crazies who don’t want ... like one of my daughters-in-law, who won’t vaccinate or have polio injections for her kids, for my grandkids. And I look at it and talk to them about it and they say, “Well, my mother doesn’t believe in it and she goes to the chiropractor.” And I think, “What does that have to do with it?” It’s just very interesting that a couple of my grandkids have not been vaccinated or inoculated with polio vaccine because their mother won’t let them have it. My son’s wife (laughs). BBL: That’s got to be particularly interesting for you, not only because you had the disease, but because you remember how scary it was. It was almost a state of panic at some points. 21 JONATHAN JHH: HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 Yes. It becomes a religion is what it is. It’s not a scientific, philosophical concept. It becomes a religion that they’ve heard about somebody that allegedly had a reaction and their baby got inoculation for polio and the mother got polio from the baby, they think. And stories like that that have to be fictional, or at least if not fictional, certainly are apocryphal. Definitely not scientific. And yet there’s a huge segment that’s developing that won’t utilize the inoculation for all these, small pox and measles and polio and chicken pox and blah, blah, blah. And it’s leaving us wide open for potential huge inroads of serious diseases in the future, despite all the things that we have done. And how do you get them to appreciate it? You can’t really. Try to talk them into it and they have a belief that something may happen or has happened to someone and they don’t want to be a participant in that and it’s all very emotional. BBL: I guess they look at you and how great you look—you look younger than you are—and they say, geez, it couldn’t have been that bad. JHH: I’'m getting younger every year. Thank you. BBL: Well, is there anything else you’d like to say about polio? JHH: I’m very grateful you’re doing this, for you and for the public and for whatever annotation is occurring. How many people have you talked to? BBL: So far about twenty-five. Our current grant has room for fifty people to interview. We’d like to expand it and be able to get more folks because we’ve had an overwhelming response from the news coverage that we’ve had. JHH: Since you’ve called me I’ve kind of been listening and there seems to be a segment of people, I’'m looking at them as wannabes. I'm sorry (laughs). They want to be one that had polio or something. Or they had some condition now which they, like 22 JONATHAN HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 fibromyalgia, now they are certain they have a post-polio syndrome. You know what I'm talking about? BBL: Yes. I've heard from some folks. JHH: And they want to get on the bandwagon. I don’t know. I’m not trying to degrade them at all. We see this kind of thing in medicine where there’s a disease of the month club and this post-polio syndrome is a disease of the month club a little bit. Do you follow me? BBL: I know what you’re saying. JHH: I’'m not saying it doesn’t exist, I’'m just saying there are some people, some patients I’ve talked to and they say, “Well, I have post-polio.” “Did you have polio?” “Well, I think I did.” “Well, what did you have?” I had this and that and I talk to them and it doesn’t sound like it was probable that they had polio, is what I’'m saying. But you’re probably going to run into that. BBL: I'm sure you’re right. JHH: And did I have polio? Well, I think so. Am I one of those that’s a post-polio disease of the month club? There wasn’t a test for it really per se, but I’'m pretty sure I had polio from everything I’ve been told and from my experience in listening to people who have had polio, I’'m pretty sure I had polio. BBL: The symptoms sure sound like it. JHH: So I don’t think I’m one of the disease of the month club for polio people. Can I actually prove I had polio? I’m not sure I could. BBL: Like you say there was no blood test, so I’m not sure anybody could. JHH: Yes. Well, thank you. 23 JONATHAN BBL: HUGHES HORNE 21 FEBRUARY 2010 Thank you. I’ll go ahead and stop this. END OF INTERVIEW 24