In Kathryn Black's touching memorial, In the Shadow of Polio, she mentions numerous times the use of an iron lung as a life savor for many Bulbar Polio patients. As I continued to read through her touching story, I became both fascinated by the state of the art technology and motivated to do more research on its history, purpose, and functions. As I researched, I found that even thought it was big, unattractive, and bulky, the iron long has a history of saving many lives. .
In 1954, the American microbiologist Jonas Edward Salk developed the first successful vaccine against polio, but for many who had already contracted the disease, it came too late. There were still those who required prolonged, artificial ventilation. Philip Drinker and Louis A. Shaw developed the first practical iron lung in 1928 at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. Drinker's machine was continually improved and publicized. It finally went into commercial production and by 1931, seventy Drinker Respirators were in use throughout the United States. Through the late 1920's and into the 1950's, the iron lung was considered to be state of the art, high-tech, life support technology. .
Polio paralyses its victims by killing off the spinal cord's motor-nerve cells, which control various muscles. In the cases of respiratory paralysis, the chest loses its muscle action and, as a result, the patients are in danger of choking. The iron lung works to prevent suffocation. The machine consists of an electric motor that drives a piston which projects and retracts air into a cylindrical metal tube that fits over the whole chest. It works by using negative pressure to squeeze the chest to expand and contract the rib cage. For the many polio survivors, who lost their ability to breathe and to control their ribcages and diaphragms, the iron lung respirator became a haven of sorts "giving the polio-stricken patients an extension of life, doing the breathing for them.
