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HOWARD ARCHIBALD RUSK, MD, is generally recognized as the "father of comprehensive rehabilitation." In comprehensive rehabilitation, those suffering disabilities that result from illness, injury, or congenital defect are given therapy and training designed to help them to live and work in the community to the best of their abilities. Rusk initially developed this field as a contribution to military medicine during World War II and later broadened it in application to the civilian population. The excerpts reprinted here were taken from his engaging and often humorous autobiography in which he relates the many adventures involved in his life's work.
Rusk was born on April 9, 1901, to Augusta Eastin Shipp and Michael Yost in Brookfield, Missouri. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Missouri in 1923, then earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania two years later. He returned to Missouri for a one-year internship at St Luke's Hospital in St Louis, married Gladys Houx, and began a private practice in internal medicine. In the early 1930s, he had his own office with a staff of seven-two doctors and five nurses-as well as technical and secretarial staff. In April 1937, Rusk became the second internist in the United States to pass the rigid examination required for membership in the newly created American Board of Internal Medicine. 1 In 1932, the first of Rusk's many articles began to appear in various medical journals. These early papers dealt with the therapeutic use of potassium in treatment of obesity and certain allergies.2
With the entrance of the United States into World War II in 1942, Rusk left private practice to join the US Air Force as a major and was stationed as Chief of...