Iron Lung Saves Lives: Medical Breakthrough in 1928
Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw Jr. built the first iron lung at Harvard in 1928, using an iron box, two vacuum cleaners, and a principle so simple it seemed obvious: if you couldn't breathe on your own, a machine could change air pressure around your chest to force your lungs to expand and contract. The first patient was a young girl at Boston Children's Hospital dying of respiratory paralysis from polio. She survived. During the polio epidemics of the 1940s and 1950s, entire hospital wards filled with rows of iron lungs, each containing a patient visible only from the neck up. At the peak in 1952, there were 1,200 iron lung patients in the United States alone. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, introduced in 1955, eventually emptied those wards. A handful of survivors still use iron lungs today.
October 12, 1928
98 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 12
Cyrus the Great marched his Persian forces into Babylon, ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire without a major battle. By allowing the city’s captive populations, in…
Cyrus the Great's forces marched into Babylon on October 12, 539 BC, toppling a millennia-old empire without a battle. This conquest immediately freed Jewish ca…
Edwin of Northumbria died at Hatfield Chase with most of his army. He'd united northern England and converted to Christianity. Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon of …
King Ladislaus I established the fortress of Varadinum, formally documenting the site now known as Oradea in a papal bull. This administrative recognition trans…
King John lost the English Crown Jewels in The Wash in 1216 when his baggage train tried to cross the estuary at low tide and misjudged the timing. The tide cam…
Nichiren Shōshū split from other Buddhist schools on October 12, 1279, when Nikko left Mount Minobu after a dispute over doctrine. He founded Taiseki-ji temple …
Talk to History
Have a conversation with historical figures who witnessed this era. Ask questions, explore perspectives, and bring history to life.