MAN IN IRON LUNG

Evening Star, Issue 22988, 20 June 1938, Page 12

MAN IN IRON LUNG

CONDITION IMPROVES HOPE OF HIS RECOVERY Improvement in the condition of Frederick B. Suite, jun., of Chicago, who was stricken with infantile paralysis in China 25 months ago, so that he is able to breathe naturally for 23 minutes has given rise to hopes for his eventual recovery, said a message from Miami to the ‘ Chicago Tribune,’ on April 30. Ten months ago physicians said Snite could not live more than five minutes outside an iron lung. Since Snite was brought to the family’s winter home at Miami last October, the original I,ooolb lung in which he was brought back to the United States from Peking, China, has been supplanted for daytime use by an aluminium and rubber respirator that weighs only 171bs and permits Snite to be kept in a sitting position for several hours at a time.

Only Suite’s thorax muscles are paralysed. Recent examination showed his lungs and heart unimpaired by the long illness, and attendants say they know no reason why his nerve trunks eventually will not be restored completely. Attendants make no predictions, however, preferring to let results speak for his condition. “ I hope that by next year Frederick will be able to kick a hole in the respirator,” his father, Frederick B. Snite, sen., said recently to 400 guests assembled at the Snite home for a party on the second anniversary of young Suite’s confinement in the respirator. NOW MORE CHEERFUL.

The patient, too, has been more cheerful since he began using the light respirator. Being able to sit in a chair for several hours has broadened hjs mental horizon as well as improved his physical condition. Use of the new device permits attendants to massage his arms and legs more freely to stave off muscle atrophy. The small respirator consists of an aluminium shell, fitted to the patient’s body and lined with moulded rubber graduated in hardness to sponge rubber that forms an airtight seal, necessary to make the vacuum that expands and contracts the patient’s lungs. A similar device, made of wood, and weighing 301hs, also has been used successfully. An arrangement of mirrors attached to the big iron lung which encloses the patient’s body permits Snite to read and play games with his attendants. At the rectnt party Snite watched a series of boxing matches and spoke to his guests through a microphone. He told them about his twoyear confinement, and expressed the belief that he would be restored to normal health.

Snite will be taken hack to Chicago in the first week in June to remain there until next winter. His iron lung will be operated by batteries on the trip from his home to the railroad station, where he will be placed aboard a private car. especially equipped for the trip to Chicago. Snite, who is 27 years old, is an experienced traveller, having been taken 9.300 miles by truck, train, and ship from Peking to (Chicago last summer. Then he made the 1,500-mile trip to Miami without incident. Snite was on a world cruise when stricken by infantile paralysis in Peking. That he lived to return was because the only iron lung in China was in Peking, and he was placed in it without loss of time. ,