IN THE "IRON LUNG"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 101, 26 October 1938, Page 14

IN THE "IRON LUNG"

A NELSON CHILD

APPLIANCE IN WELLINGTON HOSPITAL

PARALYSIS CASE

For the first time in Wellington, and believed to be the first time in New Zealand, a patient suffering from infantile paralysis is undergoing treatment in the "iron lung" at the public hospital.

The patient is a Nelson girl aged ten years, who was transferred to the Wellington Hospital as the result of her contracting infantile paralysis after an attack of measles. She has now had treatment in the "iron lung" for two days. It is not known how long her treatment in the apparatus will con-j tinue. j The "iron lung," a development of medical science in the last ten years, is a long metal barrel which encloses the entire body of the patient to the neck. The air pressure inside the barrel is raised and lowered rhythmically, causing the patient to breathe, even though his chest muscles.are too weak to do this normally. Wellington has had its apparatus for some months now, but this is the first occasion on which a call for its services has been made. The "iron lung" leapt into prominence a year ago when Frederick Snite, son of a Chicago millionaire, travelled from China, where he had contracted infantile paralysis about a year before, back to America in one. A report by the "Chicago Tribune" in June of this year, over two years after Snite had been stricken with paralysis, stated that hopes had been aroused for his eventual recovery by the fact that he was then able to breathe naturally for spells of 23 minutes.