New Medical Machinery

NEW MEDICAL MACHINERY

Poliomyelitis

Poliomyelitis was still a deadly disease in the 1920s, but victims of polio were given new hope by the invention of the iron lung in 1928. Polio, also called infantile paralysis, is a disease causing destruction of nerve cells, crippled limbs, and the wasting away of muscles. In "anterior" polio the respiratory muscles are paralyzed, often causing death within a few hours of the first respiratory distress. Due to its infectious nature, polio was a widespread and dangerous disease until the Salk vaccine was introduced in the 1950s.

Early Experiments Lead to the Iron Lung

The invention of the iron-lung mechanical respirator allowed paralyzed polio patients to remain alive indefinitely, thus saving many lives. The iron lung was created by Philip Drinker after he observed several physiological experiments to design artificial respiration methods for use after surgery. The experiments, which were conducted by his brother Cecil and Louis Shaw, involved placing a cat inside an airtight box with his head protruding from an airtight collar. Volume changes were then measured to identify normal breathing patterns.

The Prototype

Philip Drinker continued to experiment similarly with paralyzed cats. He was able to keep them alive by inducing breathing artificially with the use of a hypodermic syringe connected to the box. Next, a larger box, or plethysmograph, was built with a $500 grant from the New York Consolidated Gas Company and the help of a tinsmith and the Harvard Medical School machine shop.

Operation

The workable iron lung breathed for the patient using an electric bellows to interchange the air. The patient would lie on a stretcher secured with a rubber collar. The stretcher would then be slipped into a metal cylinder, and the iron lung was secured until it was air-tight. During inspiration, the bellows expanded and sucked air out of the tank. When the pressure surrounding the lungs became less than that of the air outside in the atmosphere, the lungs expanded and drew in air from the outside. During expiration, the bellows contracted and the pressure in the tank returned to that of the atmosphere, causing the lungs to contract.

A Lifesaving Invention

The first use of the iron lung was with an eight-year-old girl who had respiratory paralysis caused by poliomyelitis. The respirator kept her alive five days until she died of other complications. The next patient was a Harvard University student who used the iron lung for several weeks and then recovered.

Dependency an Issue

The iron lung was considered indispensable by many, but it was criticized by some physicians because the doctors feared that patients would become chronically dependent on the breathing apparatus. This fear led to unnecessary delays in treatment using the respirator, and it was eventually shown that only a small percentage of patients fell into the dependent category.

Impact of the First Mechanical Respirator

John Meyer, a thoracic surgeon and author of "A Practical Mechanical Respirator, 1929: The Iron Lung.' "notes that the Drinker respirator was the first successful mechanical respirator and that it provided a "lifeline for thousands of patients afflicted with respiratory failure caused by poliomyelitis." In addition, Drinker's invention was a key factor in the development of modern respiratory treatment.

The Ultracentriftige

The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Theodor Svedberg, a Swedish physical chemist, in 1926 for the invention of the ultracentrifige. The ultracentrifuge was a fast centrifuge, a machine used to separate colloid particles and materials of different densities through the use of a rotor spinning around a central axis to create centrifugal force.

Svedberg Determines Need for New Instrument

Svedberg's interest in the chemistry of colloids, mixtures of tiny particles suspended in another substance, made him realize the need for the ultracentrifuge. In his experiments, Svedberg was unable to measure the exact size of colloid particles and believed that his problem might be solved by subjecting them to the increased gravitational field of a highspeed centrifuge. Svedberg originally tried to develop an "optical centrifuge" which would photograph the sedimentation of the particles. When this effort proved elusive due to convection problems, Svedberg joined with Herman Rinde and created a working convection-free centrifuge in 1924.

A Significant Research Tool

The Svedberg creation, called the ultracentrifiige, became an important research tool. The ultracentrifuge allowed scientists to measure the sizes and shapes of proteins, allowed scientists to shift their focus from the whole organism to smaller and smaller parts, and led to the isolation of viruses and identification of the basis for their method of attacking cells. Other research aided by the ultracentrifiige included the separation of subcellular organelles, the development of understanding DNA, and the discovery of the methodology for carrying out genetic engineering.

QUACKERY "AEROTHERAPY'

Among the hundred or more types of healing offered to the sophisticated is aerotherapy. Obviously aerotherapy means treatment by air, but in this instance hot air is particularly concerned. The patient is baked in a hot oven. Heat relieves pain and produces an increased flow of blood to the part heated. The blood aids in removing waste products and brings to the part the substances that overcome infection. There is nothing essentially wrong about hot air therapy.

"Since the time of Hippocrates and indeed even in Biblical legend men have availed themselves of the healing powers existing in nature. The light and heat of the sun, the burning steam from natural hot springs, the dry air of the desert, and even the buffeting of the waves of the sea have been used for physical stimulation in overcoming disease. It has remained for the astute commercial minds of our progressive land to incorporate these qualities for their personal gain.

"Aerotherapy as one department of physical therapy becomes a cult when it is used to the exclusion of all other forms of healing. In New York a progressive quack established an institute equipped with special devices for pouring hot air over various portions of the body. He issued a beautiful brochure, illustrated with the likenesses of beautiful damsels in various states of negligee, smiling the smile of the satisfied, under his salubrious ministrations. In this document appeared incidentally the claim that hot air will cure anything from ague to zoster.

Source:

Morris Fishbcin, The New Medical Follies: An Encyclopedia of Cultism and Quackery in These United States, with Essays on The Cult of Beauty, The Craze for Reduction, Rejuvenation, Eclecticism, Bread and Dietary Fads, Physical Therapy, and a Forecast as to the Physician of the Future (New York: Boni & Livcright, 1927), pp. 16-17."

MORE QUACKERY "ZONOTHERAPY"

One Dr. Fitzgerald of Hartford, Connecticut, has divided the body into zones, lengthwise and crosswise, and heals disease in one zone by pressing of others. To keep the pressure going he developed little wire springs. For instance, a toothache on the right side may be 'cured' by fastening a little spring around the second toe of the left foot. Naturally, Fitzgerald has never convinced any one with ordinary reasoning powers that there is anything in his system—except what he gets out of it."

Source:

Morris Fishbein, The New Medical Follia: An Encyclopedia of Cultism and Quacker in These United States, with Essays on The Cult of Beauty, The Craze for Reduction, Rejuvenation, Eclecticism, Bread and Dietary Fads, Physical Therapy, and a Forecast as to the Physician of the Future (New York: Boni & Livcright, 1927), pp. 16-17, 64.

Sources:

John Meyer, "A Practical Mechanical Respirator, 1929: The Iron Lung.' "Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 50 (1990): 490-493;

Peter Sebel and others, Respiration: The Breath of Life (New York: Torstar, 1985), pp. 114-115;

Tyler Wasson, ed., Nobel Prize Winners (New York: Wilson, 1987), pp. 1030-1033.