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Encyclopedia Dubuque

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IRON LUNG

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An example of one of the earliest "iron lungs."

IRON LUNG. No device is more associated with polio than the tank respirator, better known as the iron lung. Physicians who treated people in the acute, early stage of polio saw that many patients were unable to breathe when the virus’s action paralyzed muscle groups in the chest. Death was frequent at this stage, but those who survived usually recovered much or almost all of their former strength.

Nothing worked well in keeping people breathing until 1927, when Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw at Harvard University devised a version of a tank respirator that could maintain respiration artificially until a person could breathe independently, usually after one or two weeks. The machine was powered by an electric motor with two vacuum cleaners. The pump changed the pressure inside a rectangular, airtight metal box, pulling air in and out of the lungs.

Inventor John Emerson had refined Drinker’s device and cut the cost nearly in half. Inside the tank respirator, the patient lay on a bed (sometimes called a “cookie tray”) that could slide in and out of the cylinder as needed. The side of the tank had portal windows so attendants could reach in and adjust limbs, sheets, or hot packs.

In 1937 the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad made an "iron lung" accessible to the residents of Dubuque. The respirator was made available, without charge, to employees of the company, their families, and the citizens of any community served by the railroad in any case which required a mechanical aid to respiration. When not in use, the respirator would be stored in Omaha, Nebraska. In an article in the Telegraph Herald, the railroad announced that while the respirator was properly a hospital service, the machine could be placed in a home "if electric current is available." (1) In addition to polio, the respirator was used in cases of carbon monoxide, morphine and other drug poisoning, alcoholic coma, drowning, and asphyxia in new-borns.

In October 1937 it was announced that investigations were being made to purchase a respirator for the community. Money to finance the project was to come from Dubuque residents who had contributed to the fight against infantile paralysis by attending Birth Balls for the President over the past four years. The proposal of the Birthday Ball Committee received the unanimous support of the Dubuque County Medical Society.

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Source:

1. " 'Iron Lung' " Made Available to Dubuque By C. B. & Q," Telegraph Herald, Sept. 28, 1937, p. 3

2. "Dubuque May Get Iron Lung," Telegraph Herald, Oct. 2, 1937, p. 1 and 2

3. "What Ever Happened to Polio? The Iron Lung and Other Equipment," Online: http://amhistory.si.edu/polio/howpolio/ironlung.htm