Death of Paul Alexander: “Iron Lung”, what is this chamber that made polio treatment possible?

American on March 11th Paul AlexanderNicknamed “The Man with the Iron Lung”, then died Lived for over 70 years with what we call the “Iron Lung”.. And this, after contracting polio at the age of 6.

The iron lung is this unique device that saved many lives in the mid-20th century. But how exactly? We will explain it to you.

Polio, a dangerous disease

Poliomyelitis (or polio) is a potentially fatal infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. The latter invades the nervous system and can cause complete paralysis within a few hours.

The first symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, neck stiffness and pain in the extremities.

One in 200 infections results in irreversible paralysis, and 5 to 10% of people with paralytic poliomyelitis die from paralysis of the respiratory muscles.

Although today two vaccines have been developed in the 1950s that can protect a child for life – and therefore offer a glimpse of the possibility of eradicating the disease – this was not always the case.

And scientists have tried to compensate for polio victims’ inability to breathe.

“Iron lung” to simulate breathing.

In 1931, in the United States, John Haven Emerson modernized the “iron lung” created in 1928. This device – a kind of box – made it possible to recreate the microenvironment that simulates the chest muscles and diaphragm. Move air in and out of the lungs.

The patient is lying on his back. The head sits on a base outside the machine with a rubber collar around the neck to provide the necessary seal to maintain the pressurized environment.

As the pressure in the reservoir increases, air is forced out of the patient’s lungs through the mouth, and air is drawn into the patient’s lungs as the pressure in the reservoir decreases.

Patients have used it “all their lives”.

“Most patients used their iron lungs for only a few weeks or months, depending on the severity of the polio attack, but those whose chest muscles were permanently paralyzed by the disease were limited for life,” we read on Ohio State. University website.

Like Paul Alexander, this American who contracted polio at the age of 6 in 1952 and was “confined” until his death a few days ago.

In 1959, 1,200 people in the United States used iron lungs, but as of 2017 there were only three.

And for good reason, the virtual eradication of polio with Jonas Salk’s vaccine development in 1952, The use of iron lungs has largely become obsolete.

Yet Ohio State University clarifies that “with a global shortage of modern respirators needed for patients with severe Covid-19, prototypes of new, easily manufactured versions of iron lungs have been developed. »

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