Trapped Inside a Tube: The Story of The Iron Lung

On this episode of Our American Stories, Daryn Glassbrook of the Mobile Medical Museum in Mobile, Alabama tells the story of the iron lung, an antiquated device used to keep people with advanced polio alive in the first half of the 20th century. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on the show,
including your story. Send them to Ouramerican Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. And up next well a
great history story. And all of our history stories are
brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College.
In nineteen twenty seven, the iron lung was invented. This

(00:38):
machine helped keep people alive who were stricken with polio,
a disease which today is mostly eradicated, but in the
late nineteen forties disabled an average of more than thirty
five thousand people a year. Here's our own Monte Montgomery
with the story of this life saving device.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
The first half of the twentieth century, there was nothing
quite like polio. Here's Darren Glassburg of the Mobile Medical
Museum with more on that.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
You know, polio was a really serious virus that affected
mainly young children and children between the ages of five
and nine through the mid nineteen fifties. The peak year
was nineteen fifty two, when there were fifty eight thousand
reported cases.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
This is polio, the cruel centuries old priippler of children
and large seventy seven thousand times. These are actual polioviruses.
So the University of Michigan campus in nineteen fifty five
came hundreds of scientists hoping to hear the words that
would signal the end of polio's long and ruthless reign
of terror.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Fortunately, the vaccine was developed in nineteen fifty five.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
But before Jonas Salk discovered that vaccine, the only way
to mitigate the effects of advanced polio was through a
device known as the iron lung.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's used for when people develop paralytic polio, about five
out of a thousand cases, and it paralyzes your diaphragm
and you're unable to breathe independently. What it is is
it is a respirator that you are supposed to stay inside.
You're strapped down, you're lying on your back, your immobile.

(02:28):
Your head is resting on this pillow and when this
is closed, they lock it up, so nowhere is circulating
on the inside of this machine. And this electric motor
is going to turn this bellows back and forth. It
has a handle. In case the motor breaks down, you
can manually operate it. But what that's going to do

(02:51):
is create negative pressure on the inside of the machine,
and this is actually how your lungs and your respiratory
system are supposed to work. But since there's lower pressure
on the inside of the machine than outside, that is
going to actually force air through your trachea into your lungs.

(03:14):
And then when you're inside, you stay inside basically twenty
four to seven until you recover. And meanwhile nurses are
providing care for you through these portholes, washing you off,
massaging your limbs, changing your bedpan. There's a wider hole
on the other side. They were very costly, like in

(03:35):
the nineteen thirties, it's one of these costs about fifteen
hundred dollars, which was as much as a single family home,
and you know, this was before health insurance and so
not everybody could afford one, but hospitals invested heavily in them,
and they were, you know, very common during this era.

(03:57):
It's not men as a permanent treatment, but some people
ended up using it for the rest of their lives
because they never recovered.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Like Frederick Snipe, who was subject to much media attention
at the time due to the iron lungs quote unquote
new factor.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Fred Snipe Junior, the man in the iron lung sees
his daughter for the first time. The little girl was
born on September the twenty second, weighing eight pounds. Snipe
has lived in an iron lung for four years, being
stricken with infantile paralysis in Peiping. He married his childhood
sweetheart last year and now he's the proud father of
a bonnie little girl.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Son magazine covers they called him the man in the
Iron lung, and Frederick Snipe was one of those people
who never recovered, and he spent the rest of his
life in the iron lung until he died of heart
and lung failure. It's very hard on your body to be,
as you can imagine, motionless stuck inside all that time.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
By nineteen fifty nine, there were still one two hundred
people using the iron lung. By two thousand and four
there were thirty nine, and by twenty fourteen only ten
people were still using the iron lung on a daily basis.
Today there's about three.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Often we get people that come in here, older people
who remember growing up and seeing somebody who had one
of these in their home, you know, somebody being treated
in their home in an iron lung. You know, these
are not made or manufactured anymore or serviced anymore, and
so if you do get an advanced case of polio,

(05:40):
you were more likely to be given a portable respirator
that allows you freedom of movement, better access to your caregiver.
But these individuals felt that they were getting better results
with the iron lung and so they were fortunate to
have people in their family who could jerry rigg it

(06:02):
and keep it running for them, and that's what they
used on a daily basis.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Though close to becoming only a museum piece, iron lungs
are a reminder of a dark time in our past,
but they're also proof of how far we've come in
less than a century. For our American stories, I'm Monty Montgomery.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
And great job is always to Monty, who himself is
a Hillsdale grad and it's special thanks to Darren Gladsbrook
of the Mobile Medical Museum. What a piece of history.
This is medical history, and all of our history stories
are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College,
where you can go to learn all the things that
are good in life and all the things that are
beautiful in life. You can't get to Hillsdale Hillsdale will

(06:49):
come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu. That's Hillsdale dot edu. Since
nineteen eighty eight, polio cases worldwide have gone down ninety
nine percent, and the number of cases in twenty seventeen
was a mere twenty two. Again, compare that to thirty
five thousand a year being paralyzed or disabled just in

(07:10):
this country. The story of the Iron lung here on
our American Stories.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
Folks.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
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(07:52):
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