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FEATURE

new. We could look back to the medieval scourge of the plague, or Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital where he served as chairman
the influenza pandemic of 1918, or tuberculosis. Three of my fel- of the medical service. A diagnosis of polio was quickly made and
low interns contracted tuberculosis. I remembered that two San he was placed in an iron lung to assist his failing respiration – but
Antonio physicians had succumbed to polio in the mid-century to no avail. He died in the early morning of August 15th. This was
epidemics. The anxieties of AIDS lessened with time. The young a family tragedy compounded. Two weeks earlier his 32-year-old
doctors learned a lesson well known to doctors of the horse and sister and her 4-year-old son had succumbed to polio. The sister’s
buggy era: that the mediation of a comfortable and dignified death twin and her son also simultaneously developed polio but recov-
for the patient and support of his loved ones was an important ered. The sisters and their children had spent two weeks in July at
service; one could “heal” even when there was no cure. The a rural summer retreat in Concan, Texas where Dr. Hargis visited
causative agent was identified as HIV and increasingly effective for one day. This young physician had all the qualifications for in-
therapies continue to be introduced. HIV and AIDS management clusion in what was later to be termed “the Greatest Generation.”
are now well-integrated into the health care structure in our coun- A graduate of UT Austin and the Medical Branch at Galveston, he
try, in contrast to its continued rampage through too many of the trained in internal medicine at the University of Iowa and the Mayo
developing nations. Foundation. He then served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps for
Through the years I often wondered about the two San Antonio five years in the Pacific Theater, rising to the rank of Lt. Colonel.
physicians who succumbed to polio. I heard stories of the summers Upon discharge he opened his practice in internal medicine in San
when an entire floor of the original county hospital, the Robert B. Antonio, an experience limited to less than four years. He was sur-
Green Memorial Hospital, would be filled with patients in iron vived by his wife and five children.
lungs, cared for by a few dedicated nurses and aides, all under the The number of polio cases mounted rapidly through the sum-
supervision of volunteer physicians. Reading University of Texas mer of 1949. The recently reopened R.B. Green Memorial Hospital
Professor David Oshinsky’s masterful reserved 44 beds for polio patients. The
recounting of our country’s experience Mexican government-initiated border
with polio in his Pulitzer Prize winning checks of southward bound Americans
book, Polio: An American Story, I was to control the disease’s spread. A con-
motivated to try to unearth the account cerned community supported a piano
of those two young doctors. I se- recital to raise funds for the March of
questered myself through a series of Dimes. Movie theatres held collections
afternoons in the Genealogy section of for victims under the rubric “Texas
the San Antonio Public Library and takes care of its own.” In what was de-
scrolled microfilms of issue after issue scribed as the worst American polio
of the San Antonio Light and San An- epidemic since 1916, San Antonio lost
tonio News of that period, seeking 14 of its 166 reported patients and
their coverage of polio. some 42,000 cases were counted na-
My first observations provided local tionally.
confirmation of how variable and un- The 1950 polio season was greeted
predictable the disease was, usually far with optimism. In early May, the San
overshadowed numerically by many other infectious problems. In Antonio Department of Health director approved public picnics
1948, San Antonio experienced one polio death, while 194 children and the initial case report rate was far behind the previous year.
succumbed to infantile diarrhea and 292 adults and children to tu- On the morning of April 11th, 35-year-old Dr. J.D. Frederick
berculosis. However, 1949 provided a different experience for San Matthews became acutely ill in his office. He was taken to near-by
Antonio and the nation. On Aug. 13, 36-year-old Dr. W. Huard Santa Rosa Hospital where a diagnosis of polio was made. Dr.
Hargis, Jr. experienced a marked resurgence of the malaise and fa- Matthews was later transferred to the Green for iron lung place-
tigue which had troubled him for several days. He was taken to the ment, but again to no avail. On May 11th he became the year’s first
continued on page 28
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