Almost a century ago, the first iron lung was born offering new hope to polio sufferers. Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz of Harvard University devised the machine in 1927. They had a clever idea ...

In 1959, 1,200 Americans relied on an iron lung to stay alive, but the machines gradually became less common following widespread distribution of the polio vaccine. In 1979, the US was declared ...

Twenty years after presenting the world with the new-famous iron lung, the University School ... was saved from death by the new machine. A six-day treatment brought the patient from a near ...

Paul had survived a serious bout of polio, but had been left quadriplegic. After an emergency tracheostomy operation, he was unable to breathe without the iron lung machine that now encased his ...

Polio usually affects children under five years old but anyone who has not been vaccinated is at risk of being infected.