What is an iron lung?
This photograph shows an opened artificial respirator commonly known as the iron lung. Polio patients of the 1950s depended on these devices to breath after being paralyzed with this devastating virus. This iron lung was donated to the CDC’s Global H (CDC/GHO/Mary Hilpertshauser/Public Domain)
An iron lung is a tank respirator that helped polio sufferers in the 1900s breathe. The device was marveled as a medical miracle prior to the invention of vaccines.
The iron lung was first used in 1928, according to Pfizer, by Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw at Harvard University.
The device pulls air in and out of the lungs, maintaining the patient's respiration artificially by changing the pressure in an airtight metal box. The patient's head sticks out the end of the device while the rest of the body is sealed inside the cylinder.
The iron lung's electric motor was powered by two vacuum cleaners.
Vaccines to fight polio nearly ended the need for iron lungs. As of 2008, about 30 people were still using iron lungs in the United States.
On March 11, 2024, Paul Alexander, a man who lived in an iron lung for most of his life, died. He was 78.
The cause of death for Alexander has not been revealed. Several weeks ago, his social media manager shared a video saying Alexander was taken to the hospital after contracting COVID-19, and he was later released.
Alexander contracted polio at the age of 6 in the 1950s and was paralyzed from the neck down and had to live inside the chamber to help him breathe.
During Alexander's extraordinary life, he earned a law degree and became a published author, according to a GoFundMe page created to help finance his health care needs.