Iron Lung Remembrances

Warren's talk about post-polio syndrome touched on the old iron-lung respirators.

Bobby, KM5VU asked what the longest survival was in one of these devices. Later, he answered his own question on the Marco-list reflector:

RE Our discussion on grand rounds..( Warren really had a good discussion.)

As of 2003, the longest surviving iron lung patient was a man in England who was 64 in 2003 and got polio at age 17.

Most of the time, he used a more modern negative pressure ventilator at home. This device is actually only a little larger than his chest.

Until a few years ago, I had a patient who in an iron lung about 45 years, having gotten polio as a young child. His mother took care of him at their home for over 40 years. For some reason, he never got into the smaller device but was in one of the old noisy iron lungs that looked exactly like the pictures we see of polio wards in the early 60’s.

I went out to the house to see him every couple of months. His mother did a terrific job keeping him alive all those decades. Several articles mentioned that in recent years it has been hard to find spare parts for the old machines and the mother had similar problems. If he had a serious infection we would transport him and the iron lung to the hospital. I think that in the early 80’s his mom and dad had him come to the hospital so they could take a brief vacation….their only one in like 40 years.

He died of pneumonia.

Bobby, KM5VU

Jeff K6JW added this:

When I was in medical school at NYU in the late 60s, I did a summer fellowship in the NYU Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, now named the Rusk Institute after its founder and leading proponent, Howard Rusk. I remember well that we had several patients there still in Drinker respirators (iron lungs) and at least one large store room packed with old Drinkers. Nearly 40 years later, I have no idea whether those respirators are still in storage somewhere or have been destroyed but, if anyone needs spare parts, the Rusk Institute is the most likely place to have them.

--JW, K6JW

Then Marilyn Currier shared her memories:

I worked as a teacher on the polio ward in Ann Arbor in the early 50s. It was quite an experience - iron lungs, the old chest respirators and swinging beds. I was not a nurse but even I learned to put on the chest respirators when a patient got tired of breathing on his own, and to look for signs of trouble and call a nurse. One of the patients was finally sent to a nursing home and he died soon after he got there - someone there left a vent open. I was on the ward when the news of the Salk vaccine was announced on the radio and there were many breathy cheers on that ward that day.

Marilyn Currier