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I can say I'd probably rather be dead than spend my entire existence hooked to a machine.It's an existence that is not life but not death either.

Hey, ~Me. That is a great poem and great link! I even take back my comment about slapping you. ;-)

I felt a little easier knowing that people often only needed these behemoths for a week or so, but I am still claustrophobic even looking at them. The link that Motts gave showing an entire room full of people in iron lungs made me very uneasy as well. At the same time I am positive that I would be looking at these in a different way if I couldn't even draw in one good lung full of air, but what a life.

I know and work with many people with disabilities who use various types of adaptive equipment and it is amazing what people can adapt to when the need is there (especially the need to pull in enough air to breathe). And it is even more impressive how many of these folks handle it without complaining. Talk about personal strength!

It could just be me...... but.............
the Sticker - above the hand written Note / Order -- looks like a cartoon Charactor / Animal - A Fox or Raccoon..... with his hand pinching his nose closed... and I just thought it was really ---- im looking for a word (or 2) here.... profoundly strange?

It's a sad picture...like the respirator had become the patient's home,and noone really expected them to get out of it,ever.Thank god for modern medicine and vaccines.
It's also uncanny with those signs,especially the hand-written ones.It becomes so real and close in time.

They probably wouldn't use the term Iron Lung in an institution nowadays. It sounds way too un-PC!

Iron lung may not be PC, but it saved a lot of lives.

God, how personal. Stickers, hand written notes, it brings the realism to the surface. A real human being was once in that device, possibly days on end. I am in awe of all of it.

I use a smaller iron lung called a port a lung, but I have used these ones before.

Henry L,

SMA or post-polio?

Lynne,
please excuse my ignorance, but what is SMA ?

Sorry - spinal muscular atrophy.
http://www.fsma.org/

Thanks again Lynne, i am just medical term challenged. ;<)

psych one,

SMA is a pretty rare disease and few folks have heard of it unless they have a family member affected with it. The reason I asked Henry L. about it is that negative air pressure vents are hardly used any more except by people with post-polio syndrome or SMA. There are a handful of other conditions and diseases that might result in the need for a device such as this, but they are generally even more rare than those two.

Ok what creeped me out about this pic is the blue label looks like it says JOE on it!!

CREEPY!

The JH Emerson company is still in existence today. Here is a pdf published by the company that talks about the life of John Emerson. John Emerson passed away in 1997.

http://www.jhemerson.c...Emerson%20(1998).pdf

This specific unit was manufactured in 1949 and was the 66th one made that year.

every on needs to own one but not be in one

I have CMD

http://www.hmc.psu.edu...usculardystrophy.htm

This is a site that has a blurb about it.

I am sitting here at work looking at these and reading the comments....on my cd player Pink Floyd....the song Breathe...somethings just happen!

I enjoy all the comments and the insite to things we see here on this site. and I just cant stop looking at it all day long...Hope I dont get fired!!

Hi Dave I'm glad we can keep you interested.

Thanks Henry L!! working 14 hours a day 6 days a week doesnt leave a lot of time for much else. Plus you learn lot more from talking (Typing in this case) to people than just watching TV or reading a book.

Dave most people that see these pictures don't realize that REAL people with feelings and hearts used them. I went here for meny years and I knew the guys that used them and thats why I get upset if I read rude comments. I know most of them passed away (RIP)

I have a friend in her fifties who must sleep in a lung. Her's was modified by her father and uncle so that she can push a switch and roll the cot in and out, and another switch to spread the foam collar open or release it so that she can get in and out by herself.
It is a fairly simple construction and wirining project for someone in the mechanical trades. I'm in the process of modifying the "collar buster" device to operate the spiral type collar since the foam ones are no longer available.

P.S.
Her lung is covered with mementos and memorabilia of her life. I could'nt find a "Star Fleet " life support technitians badge at the last Trek convention in OKC, but she thougt the shuttle pilot's badge appropriate.

Henry, I can't even begin to imagine having to have gone through what you have. Being that I am both claustrophobic and have a huge phobia when it comes to being restrained or immobalized, I don't think I would have been able to mentally handle being in one of the lungs, even if it was necessary to keep me alive. I would have gone insane. I had panic attacks after undergoing surgery years back because as I was coming out of the anestisia I could not move from the waist down and could not handle it, even knowing it was simply a temporary immobility. They had to sedate me just to keep me calm while the paralysis from the drugs wore off. Knowing what you have been through, I can tell you truthfully you are a much stronger and braver person then I could have ever been in the same situation

This is a great site! I just happened to come across it while doing some research on electroconvulsive therapy. After reading 'The State Boys Rebellion', it made me more aware of institutions like this one. It is easy to blow through your life and miss so much. I never gave it any thought. Now I am captivated.

Bobby, I still sleep in an iron lung.
http://360.yahoo.com/m...xL2KQ6sG75FYT8GuteNe

Choose the drop down box upper right and choose"mars" and the "view photos". I think my pic of me in the lung is there.

I know of someone with handwriting exactly like that........creepy .......

It seems to me that a lot of people are all 'I could never be in one, trapped forever, locked inside' and some such. Frankly, I'd rather breathe with the use of an iron lung than not at all.

Why is it claustrophobic when your head's outside? It's not like your whole body is immersed/encased.

Again.........very sobering.

i like how the label says "IRON LUNG" in quotes, first labelling it properly as a respirator, then acknowledging the ubiquity of the vernacular term

The metamorphosis that will never finish.

a racoon sticker? very sad and distrubing, perhaps a child was in this lung?

WHAT????? EWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And why do they need the name of sports teams for anyway?

I know this seems creepy and scary and just plain morbid to us, the people looking at a picture of something from many many decades ago...but...

If I can get on my soapbox:

Maybe the people who actually had to USE these things found them not so scary considering the alternative: death from polio or whatever. The families were probably a little scared to see their loved one in one of these "contraptions" but then again, they were probably very thankful that they exsisted and their loved ones were able to use one and maybe live for much longer than they would without it.

Just trying to put the shoe on the other foot.

Yes, they are creepy to our 21st century eyes...but not so much to people in the early 20th century....it was a blessing.

*Hopping off soapbox (almost breaking leg in the process)*

Whoa that was a LONG jump down!