Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
100 kg. The machine satisfied all of the technical goals outlined already and was still a
very functional and accessible respiratory care device.
As shown in Figure 9-27, patients lie flat on their back with their head lying on a stand
outside the lid of the tank and a rubber collar providing a seal around the neck. This rubber
collar is designed to offer the seal necessary to maintain a pressurized environment but is
still be comfortable for the patient. In this arrangement the doctors only have to slide the
bed out to examine the patient.
Consolidated Gas purchased a fully operable respirator and donated it to Bellevue
Hospital in New York City, and within a few months the first clinical trial was under way.
An 8-year-old child, comatose from lack of oxygen, was revived by the device. Subsequent
to that, most of the early patients of the iron lung were polio sufferers with chest paralysis
(Bellis, 2008; Drinker and McKhann, 1929; Gorham, 1971).
Drinker and McKhann aimed to offer all patients suffering from paralytic anterior
poliomyelitis the opportunity to recover normal respiration with the assistance of artificial
respiration for several hours, several days, or however long might be necessary. Their study
had found that the existing manual methods of artificial resuscitation were ineffective in
providing the necessary oxygen interchange and could not be used for extended periods of
time. Additionally, other artificial resuscitators, including the pulmotor, were too forceful
and damaged other organs.
The main requirements proposed for the respirator design included long and steady
function, adaptability to many ages and sizes, the ability to regulate the rate and depth
of respiration, and the ability to provide proper artificial respiration without harming the
patient (Drinker and McKhann, 1986).
It was dubbed the iron lung by an unknown American journalist, and after numerous
well-publicized improvements and modifications, the device went into production by
Warren E. Collins Company (Boston, MA). By 1931, 70 Drinker respirators of the kind
shown in Figure 9-28 were in use across the United States (Hill, 1995).
FIGURE 9-28
Photograph of a
Drinker type
respirator
manufactured in the
workshops of the
Hospital for Sick
Children in 1937.
(Courtesy of
Hospital Archives,
the Hospital for Sick
Children, Toronto,
with permission.)
