Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 9-29
Photograph of the
Both portable
respirator. (Courtesy
of Western Fever
Hospital, Fulham.)
In a historical review, biomedical engineer Philip A. Drinker, son of the inventor,
identified the Drinker and Shaw iron lung as an early example of biomedical engineering
long before the field was even conceptualized. He suggested that the success of the iron lung
could be attributed to the availability of electricity and the immediate need for treatment
of polio patients as well as the involvement of an engineer at all stages of the development
of the device.
The 1937 polio outbreak was particularly virulent, with the influx of patients exceeding
the available respirators. As patients often needed to spend 2 years or more in a respirator,
hospital workshops had no alternative but to build their own devices. Figure 9-28 shows
one of the respirators built at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children in 1937 to cater for
this influx (Uleryk, 2010).
Further afield, Drinker respirators were marketed in the United Kingdom by Siebe,
Gorman and Company Ltd who had for many years lead the development of deep-sea
diving gear.
9.6.5 The Both Respirator
In 1937, the London County Council in conjunction with the South Australia health
authority commissioned Edward Booth, a medical apparatus manufacturer at Adelaide
University, to design a cheaper alternative to the Drinker respirator. The Both portable
respirator, shown in Figure 9-29, consisted of a plywood cabinet and a separate cylindrical
motor-driven bellows, both on wheels for easy mobility (Hicks, 2003). Because they were
made of wood, they were much lighter and less expensive than the alternatives and thus
became the respirator of choice in hospitals in Australia and throughout the British Empire
(Meacham, 2004).
Lord Nuffield, founder of the Morris Motor Car Company, had 800 of these devices
manufactured at one of his car factories. He donated them to hospitals around the country
but was bitterly attacked for his donation by the medical press for imposing the experi-
mental Both respirator on the profession (Hill, 1995).
9.6.6 Homemade Iron Lungs
In September 1937, when their only Drinker respirator was in full-time use and more
paralyzed children were admitted to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, chief engineer
Harry Balmforth and his carpenter William Hall assembled an emergency “wooden lung”
at the request of hospital superintendent Joseph Bower. It was completed in 7 hours from
