In 1936 he tried out for the national Olympic team and won the championship of his region in the javelin, but did not end up attending the finals in Chicago due to the cost involved.

[4] In the Army, from May 1942 to November 1945 Harrington served as a doctor at the 77th Evacuation Hospital in World War II, acting as chief of the orthopaedic service.

The 77th Evacuation Hospital was made up largely of medical practitioners from the University of Kansas Schools of Medicine and Nursing, and saw service in Europe and Africa.

[4] Following the war Harrington moved to Texas and worked as a surgeon at Jefferson Davis County Hospital in Houston.

During the post-war years a poliomyelitis epidemic caused polio cases to swell dramatically and they eventually became his main priority.

At this time he worked with the Baylor College of Medicine to create the Southwest Respiratory Foundation of the National Infantile Paralysis Association, the first such organisation in the United States.

The device consists of a stainless steel rod, attached to the spine at the top and bottom of the curve with hooks.

[5] Harrington's first uses of the device that would become the Harringon Rod involved creating fresh instruments on the night before a prospective surgery.

[4] He publicly presented the process at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in Chicago in 1958, where it was met with "astonishment and deep skepticism".

Advances in surgical techniques and technology in the late 1990s were eventually able, in most cases, to correct scoliosis without causing flatback syndrome, leading to the gradual phasing out of the Harrington Rod.

[4] In an obituary following his death, the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery said, "Paul will be remembered not only for the development of the Harrington instruments, but for his straightforward frankness, his bowties, his par golf, his smile, his trumpet, and above all for being a nice person.

Display cases in the archives exhibit photographs, documents, and artifacts that depict the history of Harrington's life and career.