Biomed story songTank respirators (iron lungs)
The Iron Lung Repairman
An epidemic summer in the polio years: iron lungs arrive by plane, rail and truck, and the repairman keeps every one breathing with an oil can, a gauge and a logbook.
A biomed story song. Diagrams are simplified to tell the story; it is not a service procedure.
The story behind it: Tank respirators (iron lungs)
The iron lung, a tank respirator, was introduced in 1928 by Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw at Harvard, and a simpler, cheaper version by John Emerson followed in the early 1930s. The patient lay inside a sealed tank with the head outside; a pump lowered and raised the pressure inside so that air flowed in and out of the lungs.
During the polio epidemics of the 1940s and 1950s, when paralysis could stop a patient's breathing, hospitals filled wards with these machines and moved them between cities as outbreaks shifted. Keeping them running meant checking the neck collar seal and pressure gauges, maintaining the motor and bellows, and recording every check. Polio vaccines from 1955 onward made the machines largely unnecessary.
Reviewed November 1, 2026. General information, not a service procedure: follow the manufacturer's instructions and your facility's policy.
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