How Does Iron Lung Relate to Polio Disease?
- Polio, whose actual name is poliomyelitis, is a highly infectious disease that causes the muscles to freeze, making movement, including breathing, extremely difficult. A 30-year polio epidemic spread through the United States from the late 1920s through the 1950s, leaving thousands permanently disabled, including President Franklin Roosevelt. The disease causes swelling or inflammation of nerve cells, leading to disability from deformities in portions of the spinal cord.
- The iron lung was designed by Harvard University faculty member Dr. Philip Drinker, with the help of physiologist Louis Shaw. In 1929, "the Drinker Respirator" was touted in a medical journal. The tank respirator helped patients diagnosed with polio to breathe until they slowly regained their health, usually in a matter of two to three weeks or longer, depending on the overall age and condition of the person afflicted with polio. Iron lungs are still used today, but not nearly as many as were used from the 1930s through the 1950s.
- The iron lung was constructed of metal and could hold a small child or a tall adult weighing up to 225 pounds. The cylindrical tube could be moved around on wheels, and small windows in the side allowed health care providers to observe their patient. The patient was slid into the tank on a movable tray, leaving only his or her head exposed. A rubber collar fitted around the neck kept the air pressure sealed inside the tank. Electric motors powered the iron lung, which caused a change in pressure contained in the tank, designed as an air-tight chamber that literally pushed air into and out of the patient's lungs.
- Many people diagnosed with polio were able to recover, and while some spent a few weeks in an iron lung, others, such as Martha Mason, have spent years, if not decades, inside the iron lung. Martha was completely paralyzed from her bout with polio in the late 1930s and spent the rest of her life in an iron lung in North Carolina. Her story was memorialized in her book, "Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung," published in 2003. Today, less than two dozen people remain in iron lungs, mainly because of the massive success of polio vaccinations developed in the late 1930s that halted the rapid progression of annual epidemics.
- Polio vaccines prevent children and adults from contracting polio and are widely used globally. Children usually receive their first of four polio vaccinations when they are 2 months old, then again at 4 months. Between the ages of 6 months and 18 months, the third dose is offered, then the final dose when children are between 4 and 6 years old.