{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/jh3cz3461s/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Ben Hyatt"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine.  Disclaimer:  The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker’s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2016-05-19 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Sam Taggart (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Video file"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Rural Medicine","Arkansas","Family Medicine","Family Physician"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Ben Hyatt, MD (personal name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine. \u0026nbsp;Disclaimer: \u0026nbsp;The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker\u0026rsquo;s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/293/537/small/BenHyattM.D.DVD.mp4_1759342830.jpg?1759342833","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/161689/file/293537","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Ben_Hyatt_M.D._DVD.mp4"]},"duration":5286.03075,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/293/537/small/BenHyattM.D.DVD.mp4_1759342830.jpg?1759342833","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/161689/file/293537/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/161689/file/293537/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/293/537/original/Ben_Hyatt_M.D._DVD.mp4?1759342807","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":5286.03075,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/161689/file/293537","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/161689/file/293537/transcript/85042","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Dr. Ben Hyatt interview transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/161689/file/293537/transcript/85042/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interview with Dr. Ben Hyatt\n\nMy name is Sam Taggart and I am the interviewer.  I’m here interviewing Dr. Ben Hyatt.  We are here interviewing for the Arkansas Physicians Oral History Project and Dr. Hyatt this is your interview.   If you want to talk about other things or if there are subjects that we didn’t cover in here, you feel free to go off into any direction that you want to and we’ll sit here and listen and talk as long as you want to.  If there is any question you don’t want to answer or don’t feel comfortable answering feel free to just say that as well.  This interview is only a format.   Let’s begin with the obvious: When and where were you were born? \n\n“I was born in 1926 in Hope, Arkansas.”  \n\nYou mentioned that there were several contemporary physicians, some a little older and some a little younger, that were also born in Hope.  You mentioned Joe Martindale.\n\n“Right.”\n\n Were you born in the town of Hope? Were you born in your home or a hospital?\n\n“I was born in a hospital.”\n\nDo you remember who the doctor was that delivered you?\n\n“The doctor was Dr. L. M. Lyle, the father of Dr. Henry Lyle, the Little Rock radiologist.”\n\nWhat kind of work did your family do; your father and mother?\n\n“My mother was a school teacher.  My father, I’m not sure; he died when I was five in Monticello.  He worked for the city of Monticello is all I know.”\n\nI understand that your mother was also a musician; was she a piano player? \n\n“She was a very talented pianist and organist; church organist.”\n\nIs that what she taught in school?  Is that the kind of teaching she did?\n\n“She was a grade school teacher, but she also I guess you could say, conducted the school glee club.  You don’t hear that anymore, glee club.” \n\nSo what is the history of your family? How did your family come to be in Hope, Arkansas? \n\n“Well I guess the question is how did the Hyatt’s get to be in Monticello?  It’s kind of a long story I think.  My great grandfather got in a little bit of trouble over in South Carolina; it had something to do with slaves.  He freed one of his slaves under his charge and they kicked him \n\n\nout of the Baptist Church there in South Carolina.  He moved to Southeast Arkansas.  His name was Benjamin Culp Hyatt; that was my grandfather.” \n\nSo do you have fond memories of your childhood?\n\n“Oh yes; when my dad died, I was five and had three younger siblings; there were four of us.  So my mother moved back to Hope, her hometown, and we grew up in the home of my maternal grandparents.  Oh yes, we had a blessed childhood.”\n\nSo you had three younger siblings; sisters or brothers?\n\n“Two brothers and a sister.”\n\nWere you close to them and are you still close to them?\n\n“Well yes, we are a very close family.  We have a family reunion every year for the last 20-30 years up at Petit Jean with all the cousins.  We had a big time.”\n\nTell me a little bit about your two brothers and sister.\n\n“My sister married a very popular fellow named George Frazier.  He was in the insurance business.  They both died about two years ago.  My two brothers are still living.  One of them retired after a long career in the Social Security Administration and my youngest brother, Robert Hyatt, is a Presbyterian preacher; retired now but still been preaching quite a bit filling in in various pulpits over in the Fort Smith area.  He’s preached at Mountain Berg, over in Oklahoma, and several places.”    \n\nSo, he went into the ministry?\n\n“Yes, he graduated from Union Theological Seminary in Richmond and has had a long career.”     \n\nAs for your childhood, do you remember thinking about either being poor, middle class, or wealthy?  Did that ever come into play when you were a child?\n\n“I wasn’t aware of it.  I think looking back, we were fairly poor.  My grandfather was a banker, but he took a lot of losses during the depression.  Then when his daughter and four kids moved in with him, that didn’t help his finances.  I certainly wasn’t aware of being poor, but I guess we were.”\n\nDo you have memories of elementary school or high school?\n\n“Oh yes, fond memories of school.  I really enjoyed school and was always glad when school started up again in September.  I was a good student.”\n\nDid you excel in your work at school?\n\n\n“Yes, I was almost an all “A” student.”\n\nWhere did you go to school?\n\n“Hope schools; Hope High School.”\n\n“In 1945 when I graduated high school, I was drafted immediately into the Army and spent very little time in Hope.”    \n\nDo you remember much about your teachers when you were in school? \n\n“Why sure, I loved my teachers.”\n\n“Are there any in particular ones who stand out in your mind where you say, “Yeah, he/she really had a big impact on me?”\n\n “I don’t know about that, but I remember the girls that were so pretty.  We had a 7th grade math teacher, named Alice Henry; she later married Bobby Doolittle, a Little Rock lawyer, and the mother of Arkansas Times, Roger Leslie Peacock. I remember Alice Henry.  Then Goffus Whitman was a civics teacher who later became President of Ouachita Baptist University and really a top notch guy.  We had a lot of good teachers in Hope.”\n\nHope has really had a lot of famous or near famous people hasn’t it?\n\n“Yes, I say that I would have been more of a success if I had gone to Ms. Perkins Nursery School like Bill Clinton and Mack McClardy; but I didn’t go there.” \n\nSo what did you do for fun when you were a child?\n\n“Oh, we were always playing in the neighborhood; football, baseball, or something like that.”\n\nDid you hunt and fish?\n\n“But as far as hunting and fishing, no; my grandfather wasn’t into that.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been hunting; well, I know I never went hunting, but I’m not sure if I ever went fishing.  I don’t remember.”\n\nSo, that wasn’t part of your childhood.\n\nWhat were your main interests in school; the things that captured your attention the most?  \n\n“Well, I just loved everything about school; history, I guess.  English and Math, I was good at math.  I enjoyed it all.”\n\nWere you a big reader?\n\n\n\n“I think I was a semi-big reader, maybe.  I read all the Tom Swift novels and all the Bart Kid Novels.  I read several war stuff as it was very popular back then.  The boys would get together and talk about how the South would’ve won if only Stone Wall Jackson hadn’t gotten killed; we would’ve won; stuff like that.”\n\nWas your family religious?\n\n“Oh yes, yes we were in a church on Sunday morning until Sunday school went down for Pascal service and then mid week prayer meeting.  We weren’t allowed to miss church.”\n\nI think you said your mother played for the church.           \n\n“My momma was a fine pianist and organist and she was continually in the organ at the Presbyterian Church and at the First Methodist Church until she was around 79 or 80 years old.”\n\nWhich one of those brands did you belong to?\n\n“We grew up in the Presbyterian Church.  My mother started out in the Presbyterian Church and later was a long time organist at First Methodist in Hope.  My mother, as I say, was an accomplished pianist.  I heard it said that she, at one time, was good enough to be a concert pianist, but she did go back in the 1920s, as is was fashionable to go, to Chitakwa, New York in the summer time for their music courses.”\n\nDid you ever go with her?\n\n“On no; this was before I was around.  No afterwards she had four kids and didn’t get to do much.”  \n\nDid your mother ever remarry?\n\n“No, she never did remarry; I’ve wondered about that.  She is a good looking lady, but no.  We kids have talked about it and I don’t remember that she dated.”\n\nShe was an awfully young woman when your father died.\n\n“She was 31 with four kids.”\n\nDid you have an extended group of friends when you were in school?\n\n“Oh yeah, well yeah; I had a few friends.  Well one of my best friends from my Hope days lived in Russellville most of his life and we’ve stayed close all these years; he died two years ago.  A couple of other friends; one in particular, we stayed in touch; Charles Thomas actually became my partner.  Arthur Young lived out in California and loved the horses; he’d come back with me to go to the races at Oaklawn.  He was a top notch guy, Charles Thomas.”\n\n\n\nNot the ophthalmology Charles Thomas?  There’s an ophthalmologist, Charles Thomas, or was.\n\n“Really, there was?  Charles Thomas was a top notch student.”         \n\nSo were you involved in sports as a kid?\n\n“Oh yeah, I was a bench warmer for the Hope Bobcats football team.  I loved sports.”\n\nCan you remember when you started to think as a kid or teenager about what you were going to do with your life?\n\n“I don’t remember anything like that.  I think when I got out of high school and entered the Army; I don’t think that I had any idea of what I would wound up doing.  When I entered college, I called myself pre-law, but later I decided that that wasn’t for me and I changed over to pre-med.”   \n\nWere there any, and this is going back to the teacher issue again, teachers in high school who had any impact on you pointing you in one direction or another having an impact on what you would do?\n\n“No, I don’t think so.  I really don’t think so, I can’t think of any.”\n\nWhen did you graduate from high school?\n\n“1945.”\n\nSo, you grew up during the war, a child during the depression, during the floods of ‘27 and ‘37.  Do you remember much about those times; the depression?\n\n“Now that you remember; yes.  I remember when the Red River flooded, you said that was in ’37 I guess.  That was something to drive down to Fulton and see the flooded lands or where the Red River overflowed its space, but that wasn’t a big deal in my life.”\n\n Do you remember anything about disease entities, or disease problems, that might have played a role in worries in the church?  Polio was something that was fairly common in the ‘30s and ‘40s.  Do you remember being worried or concerned about that or worried about Malaria as it was still presented or Typhoid?  \n\n“I don’t remember anything about that expect for Polio; I had polio when I was 10 years old in the summer of 1937.  I had what’s called bulbar polio.  When I’d swallow, water would come out my nose.  So, I remember being confined to the guest room in the house.  I don’t know how long it lasted.  I remember Dr. Lyle gave me a shot in my spine and I wonder to this day what that was for, but anyway if you’re interested, I claim that I have Post Polio Syndrome.  I never have heard of it, but here recently when I tell the doctors that I think I have Post Polio Syndrome, they \n\n\ndon’t ever act like they are familiar with it.  For years, I have had swallowing difficulties; I have managed it and I have never have had aspiration, or I have sensed, as a doctor to never have aspiration pneumonia as far as I’m aware.  But, I developed colon cancer last year and was at a very early stage and instead of going in and having surgery and being home in a week, I spent almost four weeks in St. Vincent as they had some kind of problem with my heart or lungs, it’s still not clear to me what was the trouble, but I was intubated several times and as the result of that I have been on a feeding tube now since last September.  I think that it is all part of my Post Polio Syndrome.”\n\nDid you have any other major muscle groups involved with Polio other than the swallowing?\n\n“No, but I do eat now.  I have four cans of Gevity everyday to my peg tube, but I swallow and make a lot of racket clearing my throat.  My wife says that it is no fun being with me while I’m eating, so I don’t go out.” \n\nCan you drink liquids?\n\n“I handle liquids well.  I don’t like the ________liquids that they give you, but I handle liquids well.  I enjoy my coffee.  Yes, I have an experience with Polio.  I suppose that in the United States there would be very few people still living who have, well not still as sizable number I guess; when did we stop having Polio, in the ‘60s?” \n\nPolio kind of disappeared in the late ‘50s, because you had both the salt and saline vaccines that came in during the ‘50s; about the time you went into practice is when it disappeared.\n\n“I’m sure I’ve never had a patient with Polio.  There is going to be a dwindling number of Polio survivors in our country.”\n\nWhat about, you said initially that you didn’t think you remembered that, what about Typhoid and Malaria?  I know Typhoid was down around the opening of the river, Typhoid and Diphtheria were both pretty significant in illnesses. \n\n“I don’t remember anything about that.”        \n\nDid you have any other major health problems when you were a child; broken bones or things that required you to go to the doctor so that you would remember it?\n\n“I don’t think so.  I was pretty healthy kid.”\n\nDo you think the Polio had any impact on the fact of you being a bench warmer?\n\n“I think I weighed about 135-140 lbs, so I was destined not to be a football player.”\n\n And you weren’t that tall, so basketball wasn’t going to alarm too.  Were you a baseball player?      \n\n\n“Oh no, well just the sandlot; we had a lot of sandlot back then.”\n\n Did you work during the summers and weekends while you were in school?\n\n“Yes I did.  I worked starting when I was in the 7th grade.  I almost always had a job during the summer and well, I guess, probably on weekends during the rest of the year.  I worked with Repan’s department store and I worked at ANT Grocery store and also a local Middlebrooks grocery store.  In the summer of 1944, before my senior year, I was fortunate to get a job at Zen Southwest Proving Grounds where they tested ammunition.”\n\nWhat did you do there?\n\n“I worked in the gauge section under the famous Paul Clips.”\n\nReally?\n\n“Have you ever heard of Paul Clips?”\n\nYes, sir; speakers and all.\n\n“Oh yes, speakers.  He was a wonderful person and we became friends.  I’ve been to his home.  Paul Clips was my boss that summer.”\n\nDid you know that one of his children has recently written a biography of him?         \n\n“I think I may have read that.”\n\n I think it was his daughter who has written a biography of him.\n\n“His second wife, or last wife, just died; I noticed her obit in the paper the other day.   I remember going to his house and he wanted to demonstrate his speaker system; of course, he’s done a lot of changes, I guess, since then.  But he had the idea that speakers should be in the corner of the room and he had this big speaker in the corner of the room and he played it so loud you were kind of relieved when you got out of there.”\n\n He was just showing off.\n\n“A wonderful guy.”\n\nSo, at what point in time did you start thinking about well, you graduated and I started to talk about college but you went directly from high school into the Army; isn’t that right?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nTell us a little bit about your Army experience.  You were in the midst of WWII right?\n\n\n\n“Well, I got in June of 1945 and of course, the war in Europe had been over for over a month.  We were looking forward then to dealing with the Japanese.  I remember that I was really gung ho and wanted to get over there and well, one of my childhood friends were a year older and he graduated in 1944 and in just a few months he was in Europe fight at Battle of the Bulge and became a hero.  I wanted to be a hero like Charles Benson, an ole hometown boy.  So, it was kind of funny looking back that I was in basic training at Foot Roots and it seemed like most of the guys were older married men who had been drafted out of the Midwest a lot of them, several of them.  They had families and they weren’t enthusiastic about the war as I was.  I remember when the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, they were so happy because they were going to get to go home. I was not happy and I told myself, “Well, the Japanese are not going to quit, they’ll keep on fighting; you’ll get over there.”  Then when the second bomb was dropped that destroyed any hopes I had of ever becoming a hero, but I really enjoyed my time in the Army.  I was assigned as a clerk typist to a hospital ship, which curiously enough was named Hope, the hospital ship Hope.  There were three sister vessels; Hope, Comfort, and Mercy that were stationed over in the Pacific.  I made, oh, five or six trips back and forth between the west coast, Japan, the Philippines, and Korea bringing wounded veterans, or disabled veterans, back to the states; so, it was a hospital ship.  I had nothing to do with the medical part of it, I was the clerk typist.”\n\nHow long did you stay in the services?\n\n“Two years, when my time was up.  I was drafted for two years and that’s when I got out.”\n\nDid you have any plans when you got out; when you were mustarded out of the service, of what you were going to do?\n\n“No, I don’t think so.  I was just going to go to college.”\n\n Did you have a girlfriend at that time?\n\n“No, I didn’t have a girlfriend at that time.  I had a few girlfriends in high school, but I never went steady with anybody.”\n\nNow you said something just a bit ago; you said, “I got out of the service and of course, I was going to go to college,” did that come from your mother, you, or your grandfather?\n\n“Well, I’m sure it came from my mother, if not from; well, all my friends were going to college.  Three of the guys in my class went to Texas A\u0026M, so I was considering going.”\n\nWhere did you go to college and how long did it take after you were out of the service for you to get into college?                   \n\n\n\n“Oh, I applied.  As I said, I was in the Army with some guys from the Midwest, Illinois and Iowa; so I don’t know, I got that I was going to Northwestern; so, I applied and was accepted.  So, I got my degree from Northwestern.”\n\nNow it is interesting that you ended up going to Northwestern and you’re saying that it was because of your friends who were in the Army with you that that is why you went there.\n\n“Well, I think that had some affect on it.  None of them went to college with me, but I stayed in touch with several of them for a while.  Yeah, I had a positive experience at Northwestern.”\n\nWhere is Northwestern?\n\n“Evanston, Illinois; right outside of Chicago.”\n\nYou come from the mid to deep south and now, you’re going to college up in the north; was there any culture shock?\n\n“Oh, I don’t think so after being in the Army and stationed in Fort Louis, Washington and then in San Francisco.  There weren’t any culture shock after being stationed in San Francisco for a year or so.  I remember back then, I liked to go ashore from the ship into town into what was called a place where soldiers were welcomed, a USO, and there was one in particular that I could go there and there was never anybody there.  I played pool and I could practice my pool by myself.  So, this one evening I got off and decided that I would go to that USO and practice my pool; so when I got there, there was a bunch of guys there, soldiers.  They were having a big time and oh, I guess, there was at least half a dozen and one of them said, “Hey guys lets go to so-and-so, which I presumed was a tavern in the vicinity, and they said, “Hey, you want to go with us?” and I said, “Yeah, I guess so.”  We all walked out and were walking down the street and the next thing I knew, this guy that I was walking beside was holding my hand.  I guess I acted a little strange as he turned to me and said, “You are gay aren’t you?”  So, I said, “Yeah,” I didn’t know what gay meant; that was my first experience with that.”\n\nSo, they used that term back in 1945?\n\n“Yeah; that’s why I say, “I have learned a few things by the time I got to Northwestern.”\n\nWhen you were going through college, I think you said initially you thought about law; so talk about that a little bit.  Talk about how your mind changed as you starting taking courses.\n\n“Well, I have a story to tell about why I changed, I guess and it’s not something that I made a benefactor.  We had a real just top notch teacher and of course, I guess, it was called constitutional law and he thought the world of, oh my goodness a famous jurist who I can’t think of his name now, but there was this famous case I suppose back then and his name was Holland versus Missouri and it had to do with the treaty of the United States forged with \n\n\nCanada regulating wild hunting water fowl that would migrate to the United States.  Of course, the constitution did not envision anything like that and it was claimed that the United States Government had no business regulating hunting of water fowl and so, oh my goodness I wish I could think of the fellow who wrote their opinion, but he decided eventually that the government did have the right to regulate water fowl by means of a treaty rather than going through Congress to pass a law and simply engaged in a treaty with Canada that they would take measures to protect the water fowl.  So, at the conclusion of his opinion, he added this; “We have to decide this way, because if we don’t pretty soon there won’t be any water fowl to hunt.”  I thought, “Well, that’s no way to look at things.  It’s just that you’re not respecting the Constitution,” so, I decided I was going into pre-med; that was silly.”                   \n\nWhat did you get a degree in?  \n\n“English Literature.”\n\nSo you liked English; did you write?\n\n“No, I wasn’t a good writer.”\n\nYou enjoyed reading and studied literature.\n\n“Well, it was just something to get a degree in; I can’t say…..”\n\nWhere did you go to medical school?\n\n“Little Rock.”  \n\nLet’s think about this now; when you decided to go to college, there is a couple things about college that I want to ask you, but when you decided to go to college, you went to Northwestern.  The other thought would be that you would go somewhere besides coming to Arkansas.  Did you think about that?\n\n“I don’t remember just on my thinking-wise, I don’t think I wanted to live anywhere else but Arkansas.  I had so many friends here in this state, but I had a lot of good friends up in Northwestern too.  Guys who made a name for themselves.”\n\nHow did you support yourself in college?\n\n“Well, the GI Bill and I did work.  I worked in the cafeteria.  Now that you mention that, I’ll tell you something that is kind of amusing.  I worked at the cafeteria at Northwestern and after we got through serving everybody, it was our turn to eat.  I was sitting there at the table by myself eating supper on night and a couple of other workers were at a nearby table and they started laughing.  The hollered over and said, “Ben, do you have any idea how many times you chewed that piece of meat before you swallowed it?”  They counted 130 times I think.  I think of that \n\n\nnow when I think of my Post-Polio Syndrome.  Back in college, it took me a long time to eat and through the years, looking back going to the Lions Club, I think sometimes they were waiting on me to finish eating so they could start their program and sometimes, I would even skip dessert because they were waiting on me to finish eating.”\n\nDid you have an active social life back when you were in college?    \n\n“Oh, uh; I don’t know what you mean by that. Dating; about average I would say.  I didn’t ever have a; well I don’t know, I guess I had a serious girlfriend in college.”\n\nTell about the process of getting into medical school.\n\n“Oh, I didn’t have any problem getting into medical school.”\n\nYou just applied and then went.\n\n“I just applied, got accepted, and it may have been a little easier then; I think it’s kind of tough now from what they tell me.  People have pretty good grades in college and still don’t get into medical school down in Little Rock.”\n\nWhat year did you start medical school?\n\n“1953.”\n\nWhere was the medical school back then?\n\n“Over on the eastside of town.”\n\nStill at McArthur Park. \n\n“I think seem like it was my senior year that we moved west.”\n\nSo, how did you pay for medical school?\n\n“I don’t know if the GI Bill paid for it or not; I don’t remember it.  Of course, I had a job either my freshman or sophomore year in surgery as kind of a medial job, but that was my exposure for the first time to operating room procedures.  I remember then in my junior year when I actually, I guess, had a surgical rotation, I don’t remember did we do that in our junior year?”\n\nYes sir.        \n\n“Get to assist in surgery with gown, gloves, and all that.  I was a junior and so, I remember that was a big deal.  I remember I had witnessed so many operations by that time as a general flunky in the operating room that I thought, “Well, this will be a breeze,” but the first operation I was scheduled to work with was a pilonidal cyst and oh, something about that surgery got to me and made me sick and there I was thinking that I could perform better than everybody else and there \n\n\nI was sick.  The surgeons said, “Is there something wrong with you, Hyatt?” I admitted that there was and he said, “Get out of here.”   That was kind of embarrassing; but I enjoyed it.” \n\nWhat about your first two years, the clinical parts of medicine; did you enjoy that? \n\n“The first two years; you don’t call that clinical do you?”\n\nWell no, I was talking about the book work.\n\n“Yeah, we had, I guess, a famous anatomy teacher back then, Jeff Banks.  He probably wasn’t there when you were there.”\n\nNo, but they named a building after him. \n\n“Jeff Banks was the anatomy professor and was really a fine person.  I enjoyed it, I enjoyed all that.”\n\nDid you do well?\n\n“Oh, I think I did average.  I did not; I excelled as a high school student, I was a salutatorian.  I should have been valedictorian, but I was a salutatorian.  But in college, oh, I didn’t study like I should.  When I decided to go pre-med, I did buckle down and make “A’s” in biochemistry and whatever else you had to have to qualify for med school; I did buckle down.  Then in med school, oh I don’t know, I really didn’t study as hard as I should have.” \n\nWhere there any crisis along the way either late college or the first couple of years of medical school where you said “Ok, this is not for me; I may not make this;” that kind of thing?  \n\n“No, I don’t think so.”\n\nAt what point did you start thinking about falling in love, getting married, and having children? \n\n“Probably in my senior year in med school, my friends were marring and I thought, “I need to get married; I think I’ll marry a Hendrix girl.”  So, I found me an interest.”\n\n Did you really think that?\n\n“Yeah, my friends were from Hope and I thought, “I’d get me a Hendrix girl.”  It was a popular school for Hope people; I can name a bunch of them that went to Hendrix.  My brother and sister, both went to Hendrix; so, I wanted to marry a Hendrix girl.” \n\nDo you have some fond memories of medical school?\n\n“Oh yeah; yeah.”\n\n \n\nFunny anecdotes or any things that happened to you; like the getting sick at the pilonidal cyst?\n\n“Well, I never was much of a drinker; but I guess I did overdo it a time or two.  Back then, it was popular for med students to go to a place over on the eastside of town called “The Brown Jug; ” I don’t think that it is there anymore and has probably been closed for years.  But, we’d go to the Brown Jug and drink beer for a couple of hours in the evenings.  I know that there were a couple of times when I didn’t feel like getting up in the mornings and going to class.”\n\n Where did you do to eat meals when you were in med school?\n\n“Yeah, where did we eat?”\n\nDid you cook?\n\n“No; huh, well of course there was the cafeteria; probably didn’t eat breakfast and had lunch at the cafeteria.  Of course, they had a cafeteria at the new school, but we had a cafeteria at the old school, which was good.  That’s funny, I don’t remember going to any particular place, well there was a place there on Main Street; what was the name of that place?  It’s not there anymore, but it was kind of popular with med students; I can’t remember it now.”\n\nWhat do you remember about being in the new medical school your last year for training? \n\n“Um….I don’t remember.  Well, my senior year, I took a job at the state hospital; they called it an external oblique.  I worked at the state hospital, which was right across the street and I lived there.  I guess that was my pay, I don’t think I got paid; well yeah, we had room and board.  We lived up on the top floor and dined at the state hospital employee’s dining room; that was my senior year and I enjoyed that.”\n\n So, you worked at the state hospital and lived there?\n\n“Yeah, up on the top floor.”\n\n That was the old state hospital; not the new one right?\n\n“Yeah, I guess you would call it that; yeah.  I remember in your senior year, you had OB turn or service and I was sitting by this OB patient and it was lunch time.  I thought, “I think I can run across the street and eat lunch and get back before she has this baby.”  So, I raced over there and ate lunch; well. I got back and she had had that baby and the resident really got on my butt about it; Rylan Mundy.  I’ve always held that against Rylan.  I don’t know if he turned me in or what, but he was kind of hard on me for missing that delivery.”\n\nSo at what point did you decide, I think you went and did your internship at Baptist?\n\n“St. Vincent.”\n\n             \n\nDid they build the new hospital when the new medical school was built?\n\nI believe so.  The hospital and the medical school were built at the same time.\n\n“Oh yes; of course, it wasn’t nearly what it is today with all those other buildings; Jack Stephens Cancer Center and all those others.”\n\nDuring, I know and I think for most of us; those last two years of medical school, you start seriously thinking about what it is you’re going to do with your life and as you already said, you were seriously thinking about settling down and marrying a Hendrix girl and figuring out where you were going to go and spend the rest of your life.  What do you remember about that process?\n\n“I don’t remember too much about it.  I think I always had the intention of doing general practice, of course I was older than some of the guys so I thought that I was too old; I was in my 30s by the time I settled down and found a permanent job.”\n\nInteresting thing; this whole idea of this community clinic here, how did you end up in Perryville?  Obviously, you are from another part of the state.  Talk a little bit about that; is it Nickerson that created the clinic here?\n\n“You mean Nicholson probably.”\n\nTalk a little bit about the clinic here and how you were enticed to come here and that kind of thing.\n\n“The clinic was a result of the interest that the Rockefeller folks had in improving rural health care.  I don’t know as far as other rural health clinics scattered around the state, but back then we had a very prominent politician here in Perryville, Paul Vandalson; you may have heard of him.  So, Paul was one of the most affective arm twisters in the world.  He talked to the Rockefeller people into putting their money into this facility here.   I would guess it was in 1956 or somewhere along in there when it was started.  I finished my internship in 1959 and took a job in Beaumont, Texas at the city hospital there with just a salary position as a, I was fixing to say a hospitalist, but they didn’t have the term back then.  But, I worked at the city hospital in Beaumont, Texas for a year.  At the end of that year, someone, one of my friends, had told me about an opening her in Perryville and I had gotten married to an Arkansas girl, a girl from North Little Rock, and we wanted to move back to Arkansas from Beaumont.”\n\nWas she a Hendrix girl?\n\n“Yeah.”\n\n What was she doing when y’all met?            \n\n“She was a school teacher.”\n\n\n\nDid you meet her during premed school or residency?\n\n“Actually, I met her while I was interning at St. Vincent on a blind date and we hit it off pretty good.  Then I moved to Beaumont to take that job and we stayed in touch; so, we got married in January that year I was in Beaumont.  So, we lived in Beaumont then about six months before moving to Perryville in July of 1960.”\n\nWhat was her maiden name or her given name?\n\n“Sarah Helms; she was a North Little Rock girl.”\n\nYou were about the 3rd or 4th physician to work in the community clinic right here.\n\n“I’m going to say the 5th.  Dr. Gellher, Dr. Mills Pierson, Dr. Holmes, and Byron Grimmett from South Arkansas.  There was another one.”\n\nDid you and I can’t remember the fellows name now, but there was a collective physician for years and years and year; and I think you guys overlapped a little.\n\n“We did, I think maybe; we’ll, of course those last few years he was in bad health.  I think he dies about 10 years after I moved here.  “Dr. Stanley” they called him; his full name was Dr. Stanley Kratowski, but everybody called him Dr. Stanley.  Yeah, he took his training at some; I don’t know what kind of school you call it up in Kansas.  He was a nice fellow.”         \n\nDo you have any opinions when his practice in medicine?\n\n“I suppose he practiced medicine like all the rest of us; I don’t have any negative feelings about his practice in medicine.  Folks here in Perryville will tell you that _________ that back then it was very common to get your tonsils out.  It was just a part of life for a kid to get his tonsils out and they would line up.  The doctors would say, “Hey, they need to get their tonsils out, next.”  It was just like lining up for a typhoid shop or something; but I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of taking anybodies tonsils out.  As far as know, he never killed anybody that I know of.”   \n\nIn about the time that you were coming out; the med center was playing with the idea of doing a general practice residency; a two year deal, and they played with it off and on for a couple, two to three years.  Were you in or aware that that was going on?\n\n“No.”\n\n There were very few people in it; probably no more than 12-13 people total over the time frame that they did finally just left it and then they picked it back up when they started family practice in 69-70.  When you did your internship, what stands out about your internship; about what you got to do, what you didn’t get to do, how did it prepare you?\n\n\n“Oh, I guess the services I would remember mostly would be in surgery getting to know these prominent Little Rock surgeons and they’re idiosyncrasies.”\n\n Tell me some of the ones you worked with.\n\n“Joe Buckman and Dr. Watson, the neurosurgeon.”\n\nDid you know that Joe’s son was my med school roommate; one of them?\n\n“Joe Buckman’s son?”\n\nYes, Buck.  Did you ever know Buck?\n\n“No.”\n\nHe was one of my housemates.\n\n“Ok.”\n\n Do you know Dr. Burner in Russellville?\n\n“I heard of him.”\n\nHe was one of my housemates.  They have two children that are physicians.   \n\n“I was going through some old Northwestern stuff the other day and I noticed that Joe Buckman graduated from northwestern; I didn’t know that.”\n\nYeah and they both trained, both he and his son, trained at Cleveland Clinic.\n\n“They did?”\n\nYes.\n\n“I didn’t know that.”\n\nIs Joe still living?\n\n“Oh, Dr. Buckman? Oh no, he died a number of years ago. Speaking of Cleveland Clinic; I, in med school, tell this, I guess I don’t think I’m lying, in med school cancer was cancer and had to be removed with wide margins and that went for breast cancer and the little basal cell on your arm.  It had to be removed with wide margins.  Back then, George Crawl Jr. at the Cleveland Clinic was making these badgering remarks about the Halstead procedure and was talking in favor of lumpectomy or something instead of the Halstead, but that didn’t go over too well with the surgeons at the medical center.  I was kind of surprised when I got to Beaumont when somebody came into our clinic with a basal cell, obviously a basal cell carcinoma and the \n\n\ndermatologist who was visiting the clinic that day hyfrecated it.  I said, “My goodness, are you sure you got it all?”  So, that kind of validated my idea about cancer since then.” \n\nDuring your med school, did you build up or did medical school cost a lot and you end up with a lot of debt after medical school?\n\n“No debt.”\n\nThat’s interesting.  How did you pay for your medical school, or do you remember?\n\n“Well, I don’t think it was very expensive.  It wasn’t but $1000.00; it wasn’t what it is now.”\n\nIt’s certainly not what it is now.  Do you remember how you treated heart attacks when you were in your internship and when you came into practice in Perryville back in the 60s?\n\n“It seems to me like you made them comfortable; it was about all you could do.  Well, of course, Nitroglycerine; but what else could you do?”  \n\nDo you monitor patients on the cardiac monitor back in the 60s? \n\n“No, I don’t think we had monitors back then in the ‘60s”\n\n Now when you came here and set up practice; you never did have hospital presences here or did you?\n\n“Actually, the clinic, as it is called or what was called, was licensed as a hospital and had two rooms back there with a total of about three beds in each room for men and women.  When I came here, I was encouraged to put people in the hospital because they had money; from the welfare department or the state health department, whatever.  Well, I wasn’t very good at that, putting people in the hospital that didn’t really need to be in the hospital.  Well, this is going to sound kind of funny, but the first y week I was here, or maybe the first night I was here, somebody was in what they called the hospital.  They didn’t have nurses; they had a babysitter.  A lady from the community would sit with the patient or be there in case the patient needed something during the night.  So, it may have been my first night or first week, somebody was in there back in the hospital and the nurse called me in the middle of the night and said, “My patient is sick at her stomach.”  I said. “Well, give her a shot of Phenergan; I don’t know if they still have it, but you know what Phenergan is…the nurse said, “Oh doctor, I don’t give shots.”  Well, I lived three doors down from the clinic so I went over to the clinic and gave him a shot of Phenergan in the middle of the night; I didn’t realize that she was just a babysitter; that’s how dumb I was.  But that was a hospital.  After about a few months I decided that that was silly.  If anybody needed to go to the hospital, they’d go to Morrilton and I got on the staff up at Morrilton.  I was on staff there for a long time.”  \n\nHow many miles is Morrilton from Perryville?\n\n\n“About 13 to 15.“\n\n That’s not bad.  \n\nDid you go on a lot of house calls?   \n\n“Oh my goodness; yeah, we made house calls all over the county.  There was a lady down at Toad Suck, which is about 20 miles.  She was real bad with migraine headaches or something, prominent people; so when they called, I would to go.  I used to think that I knew where everybody lived on the Hwy 64 going to Pine Bluff.  I knew who lived in every house; but now I don’t know where anybody lives.  But yeah, I made house calls all over.”\n\nDid you ever get hijacked or held up during house calls?\n\n“Never; no.”\n\nWere you ever concerned that you might?\n\n“No, I didn’t; it never occurred to me.”\n\nDo you go to the Presbyterian Church here in Perryville?\n\n“I never was active here to the Presbyterian church.  My wife is a Methodist; so we joined the Methodist Church and have been very active in the Methodist Church here since 1960.”\n\nTell us a little bit about your charges when you first went into practice.\n\n“When I came here the charge was $2.00 for a house call.  I went up to $3.00 right away and maybe after five years, I went up to $4.00.  I remember about that time, I attended post graduate course, or whatever you call it, at the Medical Center and several of the doctors there were talking about what they charge and they were charging $6.00 or $7.00.  I remember Dr. Ben Salzmann telling me, “Ben, you really ought to go up to $5.00 at least” but, for some reason or another, I didn’t do that.  I stayed at $4.00 and about that time, I think Nixon was President and they froze the office doctor’s charges; I don’t know how they can do that but you weren’t supposed to increase your charges.”\n\nThere were pretty dramatic rises in charges, both in the office and everything else, after ‘65-’70; pretty dramatic changes.\n\n“Yeah between, ’65-’70; I didn’t do that and so, that affected my bottom line event.”       \n\nIn that first few years, did you have any events of scary moments in your practice?\n\n\n\n“I don’t think so.  I remember really delivering babies; I delivered quite a few babies there at the clinic.  This one lady bled profusely immediately post-partum. I remember drawing blood and having my RN, I did have an RN during the day time who was a really nice, wonderful lady, who drew the lady’s blood and took it over to the hospital in Morrilton for a cross match and they sent two units back; I don’t guess they do that now days as everything is so complicated, but, I did get them to send me one or two units of blood.  I gave it to this lady and she did ok, but I guess that was the only time I was afraid that I really messed up.”\n\nDo you have a hospital in Perryville now?\n\n“Oh no.”\n\nSo, you still got to Morrilton for hospital needs?\n\n“Yeah.”         \n\nWhen were your children born?\n\n“We got married in January and Jr. was born in November and then the following Christmas the next year, we had a daughter; so, they were 13 months apart.  After that, we waited a couple of years for the next one.  We had three children pretty close together.”\n\nWhat year did you get married in?  \n\n“1960.”\n\nWhat are your children’s names?\n\n“The oldest one is a Jr.; Benjamin Jr. and he would be 55.  My daughter, Elizabeth, would be 54, and my youngest son, John.  My daughter, Elizabeth, is married to a prominent Pine Bluff orthopedic surgeon, Allan Pond.  His dad was an anesthesiologist at St. Vincent; he was a really nice guy.  Well, Allan, my son in law is just one of the nicest men you’ll ever meet.”\n\nYour youngest child is?\n\n“John; he lives in Pennsylvania now and is into electrical transmission.  He works for a transmission company.”\n\nSo, none of them decided to become a physician? \n\n“That was a disappointment; I have a son in law that is a fine doctor, but none of my children made it into the medical field.  I was kind of disappointed at that.”\n\nTalk a little bit about the medical records that you kept when you first went into practice.\n\n\n“I just wonder what people would think today about the medical records.  I pretty well did what the doctor before me had done; when somebody came in with sore throat, they would just say sore throat-penicillin shot.  That was the extent of the medical records; you didn’t record a lot of stuff.”\n\nDuring the early years of your practice, there were an awful lot of new drugs that came out.  Like every other month there was a new drug prescription; do you remember that having an impact on you or your practice in medicine?\n\n“I don’t remember that.  I do remember that I always enjoyed seeing the drug reps and formed a sort of friendship with the drug reps.  I don’t know if the drug reps now, but it seems like almost every day there was a drug rep coming by and some of the guys were real interesting and some of the girls were real pretty.”\n\nYou started talking about office staff and you said initially you had a particularly good nurse that you really liked.\n\n“Oh yeah, she was a good RN.”\n\nWhat would happen when you would take off for a day, or even if you took off for a day going to Little Rock, Conway, or Morrilton?  How did the clinic work when you weren’t there, because people were still going to come in?\n\n“Well of course, we went a whole lot by appointments, but there were people who would walk in.   Of course if I was gone, that was ok; if they couldn’t wait, I guess, they would go to the emergency room in Morrilton.”                 \n\nSo you practiced here for about 40-44 years; how much of that time were you the only physician here?\n\n“Dr. Stanley, I think, died some 10-12 years after I came in.  I think that he hadn’t been practicing a lot for a few years before that.  Sometime probably in the 1980s, or late ‘80s, a group of business men bought the old bank building here in Perryville and thought it would be a good location for a medical clinic.  Baptist Hospital opened up a satellite here; I don’t know how successful they were.  They had a succession of doctors at the satellite business.  I don’t think it affected my business any.”\n\nWas there a Dr. Pennington here at one time?    \n\n“Jim Pennington, an awfully nice guy; he practiced in Ola, which is 30 miles west or something like that.  Jim Pennington; he was in my class.”  \n\nWhich year did you retire?\n\n\n“Well, there is a medical student by the name of Jerry Stewart who did an externship, after your junior year you spend a few weeks with a doctor out in the state, and Jerry Stewart was a veterinarian who decided to go to medical school.  Jerry came up here during his externship, which would have been about oh around the year 2000 or something, and he really liked it here.  He said, “When I get out of medical school and my internship or whatever, I would like to come here.” And dumb me said, “Well, I’ll probably be ready to turn my practice over to you then” and by golly, those three or four years went by so fast the next thing I knew Jerry Stewart was here and he wanted to take over.“\n\n What year was that?\n\n“2004.”\n\nSo, he showed up.\n\n“He showed up and I thought, “Well, I don’t know if I promised it to him, but I let him take over” so, I got out of the business in 2004 when Jerry took over. He was an awfully nice guy with a lovely wife who also was a vet.”\n\nAre they still here?\n\n“I think he must have had some kind of deal where you go to medical school and promised to practice in a small town for five years or something; have you heard of that?  Well, I think, he was in some kind of deal like that because he stayed exactly five years and moved over to Conway where he still lives and has a nice practice over there.  He took my secretary with him, so that worked out ok.”\n\nIs there anybody in your old office practicing there?\n\n“No, that left Baptist the only source of medical treatment here.”\n\nDid you join Baptist or any other hospital when you retired or are you still attending?\n\n“No, I was independent after I turned my practice over to Jerry.  He never did move over here; he had a nice home in Conway.  His wife worked for some veterinarian over there while he was in med school.  So, he never moved over here and I decided, “Well, if you’re not going to be able to move over here, I’m going to retain my association with a local nursing home”  so, I continued to be a Medical Director.”\n\nAre you a Medical Director now?\n\n“At the nursing home; no.  I was the Medical Director for several years; but I, of course, dropped my privileges at the hospital in Morrilton and no longer associated with the hospital.  The nursing home didn’t like that; they really liked to have doctors dismiss the patients to their \n\n\nnursing home where they would be on Medicare for two weeks, or a month or so, and that really helped their bottom line.  In fact, they get kind of cross with a doctor if they don’t send them a lot of patients for Medicare beds, they think that’s their bread and butter; so, they demoted me from Medical Director, which is fine; but, I continued to take care of my personal patients there.  Of course the doctors in Morrilton would come over then and see patients, but most of the patients were my patients.  I would continue to help them; but in 2012, I completely quit.”\n\nSo, there are other doctors in Perryville now?  How many doctors are there now?\n\n“The only doctor in Perryville now is the doctor who lives in Conway and comes over to their satellite; a really nice lady, Melissa Seme.  I think they stay pretty busy down thee on the highway.”\n\nHow many people live in Perryville now?\n\n“Well, the sign says 1,500 or right at it.”\n\nSo how did your family take to the life of being the only doctor; essentially in the county, not quite in the county but pretty close? \n\n“Oh, I don’t think it had any impression on them; I really don’t.”\n\nDuring your years in practice and even now, not just in your years of practice, were you involved or active in the community; on school boards, or a deacon in the church, or any of those kinds of things?\n\n“Not a whole lot; I was on the City Counsel for a while.  Of course, I occupied various positions with the church.  I was the Chairman on the Board of Trustees and this, that, and the other; but, I never exerted much influence in community affairs.  I belonged to the Lion’s Club, which doesn’t amount to much now days; we’re down to half a dozen members.  We used to be very active.  The Lions Club and church; but as far as being a go to person, no.”\n\nWere you ever involved in politics; medical politics or general politics?\n\n“No, I didn’t contribute much.  I remember, we used to go around collecting money and I would collect some money, but no I never was.  I’ve never appreciated their particular agenda.”        \n\nWhat were the most gratifying things for you during your practice in medicine?\n\n“I think the friendships that were formed with my patients and I still have with those that are still living been very important.   I think people loved me in the community; they give me hugs.”\n\nSince you retired, what do you do with your time?  \n\n\n“Well, I have a little place I call “the farm” on the edge of town and when the children were still here we had cattle; I enjoyed that part.  When they went off to college, I had to do it by myself and it wasn’t nearly as much fun.  So, I got rid of the cattle and those 80 acres are just out there now.  Now and then, somebody will cut some hay, but it’s just out there.  I’ve got interested in muscadine, so that’s what I live for now.  I live to see my Muscadine ripen.”\n\nDo you make Muscadine wine?\n\n“Well, no; the way I got into that was I met those folks from Whitman, Arkansas who gave me a couple of bottles of wine and it turned out that he is a wine maker, rather an expert wine maker who made that Muscadine wine; this was several years ago.  At the nursing home back around 2010 at Christmas time, they gave me a $100.00 gift certificate to a plant outlet in Conway.  Initially I thought, “What am I going to do with that?”  Then I thought, “Why don’t I get some Muscadine vines and raise Muscadines for my friends wine operation.” So, I have been in the muscadines for about five years now and I rather enjoy it.”\n\nFor his mass farm?\n\n“Yeah; so, that’s my hobby now.”\n\nAre you happy that you chose medicine as a career?\n\n“Yeah, I don’t have any regrets.”      \n\nWhen you went into practice, what did you think your life would be like in medicine?\n\n“Well, I thought it would be a comfortable life, comfortable income, and be important to the community to give back to the community.  It pretty well turned out that way.”\n\nWhat do you think the future of medicine is?\n\n“Well, I kind of have a pessimistic view of life in the future.  I think maybe things are not going to be so good for our children.  I think a lot of old people get that idea; of course, it always turns out that they’re wrong.  Things do just keep getter better, and better, and better; but, I don’t know, I’m not an environmentalist and I worry about things like that; global warming and stuff. I consider myself a liberal, or maybe more a radical.” \n\nIs there anything unusual or unique about Perryville or Perryville County that had you not been here you wouldn’t have dealt with? \n\n“Well, I don’t know.  Of course, Perry County is unique in way as it has not been colonized and populated like the other counties surrounding the place.  You take Faulkner, Lonoke, or of course Saline; they’ve had population explosions.  We’ve not experienced that here.  When I came here, I think Perryville was 1200 and is not 1497 or something.”\n\n\nDo you have any idea why that’s true?\n\n“I don’t; I don’t know why that would be true.  No, I don’t.”\n\nIs there any subject that you would like to talk about and have on record that we haven’t questioned you about; about your life, medicine in general, Perry County?\n\n“I don’t know, as I said, I consider myself liberal.  I think a single _____ health system, like they have in some other countries, would be good for our country; I would be in favor of that.  I don’t have any objection to big government, like some people.  I’m kind of conservative when it comes to LGDTQT; I’m kind of conservative about that.  Generally, I think of myself as being really a progressive liberal.”          \n\nI have one last question and it’s not really a question.  Just pretend that we are not here and you’re talking to your great, great, great grandchildren; the kids of the future, your descendants.  What would you say to them about yourself and your relationship to them or about medicine? \n\n“Well, that’s a difficult assignment.  As I said, I am somewhat pessimistic about the future and about the earth warming.  I looked it up some time ago and I forgot how many billions of years that the sun has shown upon the earth during which time the energy was stored in the form of coal and all that.  In a period of something like 100 or 200 years of burning coal and oil, we’ve spent I don’t know how much of that original coal and oil that we’ve used, but some people think that we’ve used half of it in 200 years; half of what it took 100 million years to make.  I think that that is going to have an effect and we don’t know how bad it is going to be; but that and the world’s population.  We used to be a member of zero population growth and I do think that it is going to be impossible for the world to support our population even with what we have today; 7 billion.  I don’t think that that is sustainable and will be interesting to see how things work out.  I kind of wonder if maybe there will be a disaster that will wipe out maybe a large part of the human population; maybe about three quarters, that way people can start over again.  I hope my children are on top of everything and my grandchildren will be on top of everything and they make the best of what might be a pretty sad time for them.”\n\nThank you sir; thank you very much.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/161689/file/293537#t=0.0,5286.03075"}]}]}]}