Two Hundred Cases of Paralytic Foot Stabilization after the Method of Hoke

Dr. Oscar Lee Miller was born on a farm in Franklin County, in northeast Georgia [6]. He obtained a teachers’ certificate and taught school several years after high school before he attended the University of Georgia and then graduated from the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons (now Emory University School of Medicine) in 1912. He took postgraduate training in Atlanta, working with Dr. Michael Hoke (whose name is associated with hindfoot arthrodesis). He entered military service in 1917, then returned to private practice after the armistice. As with other first Presidents of the AAOS, foreign experience was important, and in 1921 he visited Sir Robert Jones and other British surgeons. Upon returning he moved to Gastonia, North Carolina and helped develop the North Carolina Orthopaedic Hospital, an institution focusing on crippled children. In 1923, he opened an office which eventually became the Miller Clinic in nearby Charlotte. (The Miller Clinic and Charlotte Orthopedic Specialists merged in 2005 to create OrthoCarolina.) Dr. Miller was active in the AOA as well as the AAOS, and was a member of the Argentine Surgical Association. He became President of the AAOS in January, 1942, only days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In his Presidential address he emphasized the importance of the care of crippled children and urged a strong relationship with the Latin American orthopaedic community [1]. He served as Chair of a committee that created the Inter-American Orthopaedic Fellowship Program, for Latin American surgeons to visit training centers in the US. He also urged the AAOS to develop a library ‘‘as a repository for all pertinent records.’’ The Executive Committee outlined a program in June, 1941, to present a ‘‘motion picture exhibit,’’ a feature of the meeting which subsequently became the Instructional Course Lecture [2]. Under his leadership at that meeting, the AAOS passed a resolution regarding support of the country during the war years: ‘‘It is the desire of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons to offer its wholehearted support to our Country in this serious emergency.’’ A telegram with the resolution was sent to the President of the United States. Miller had a lasting interest in foot surgery, undoubtedly influenced by Hoke. We reprint here Miller’s report of Hoke’s triple arthrodesis for paralytic feet [3]. Astonishingly, Miller states this was the only operation performed for paralytic feet in his clinic over a three-year period, yet he reported 200 cases in this short time; obviously the number of polio patients at the time was devastating. Among these 200 cases, 121 were of the ‘‘clubfoot type,’’ 62 had pes cavus (on which he wrote in 1927 [4]), and 17