Howard A. Howe
Howard Atkinson Howe was an American physician, whose work at the Johns Hopkins medical institutions helped to lay the groundwork for the Salk polio vaccine.
Early years and education
A native of Wabash, Indiana who credited a high school teacher in Indianapolis with arousing his interest in biology, Howe attended Butler University and graduated from Yale University in 1925. In 1929, he graduated from the Hopkins medical school and remained there serving in a number of faculty posts. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Omega Alpha and other professional groups.Howe was a member of the United States Navy Reserve during and after World War II, leaving the Reserve in 1953 with the rank of lieutenant commander.
Polio researcher
Howe had started the original polio program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1937 and remained as a director of the laboratory when it was transferred to the School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1942. At his retirement in 1959, he was adjunct professor of epidemiology.He and his associates traced the pathways through the body of the polio virus, identified the three types of virus and produced immunity in chimpanzees with inactivated virus.
In 1952, he successfully inoculated children at the Rosewood State Hospital, just before the pioneer inoculation programs of Dr. Jonas Salk who used a more refined vaccine that was easier to mass-produce.
Dr. David Bodian, professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the medical school, who for a number of years directed the program with Dr. Howe, described him as "rigorous" and using an "objective approach" in the laboratory, but as a "somewhat romantic" person with cultural and artistic interests who was prized for his personal qualities and was "quite unlike what people think of as a researcher."