NEW DEVICE FOR PARALYSIS CASES

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 October 1949, Page 10

NEW DEVICE FOR PARALYSIS CASES

NEW YORK, October 3.—A 10inch box resembling a portable radio was announced today as the latest aid in the fight against infantile paralysis. Two scientists of the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr Stanley Sarnoff and Dr James Wthittenberger, disclosed that they had invented a new electro-phrenic respirator. The new device, they said, was for use in cases of bulbar paralysis, where the cumbersome iron-lung was ineffective. . Known as the E.P.R., the device could be plugged in to ordinary house current. An electrode leading from a respirator carried the current to the phrenic nerve, in the patient’s neck. [The phrenic nerve controls breathing.] This electric charge stimulated normal breathing while Nature restored the disrupted nerve centres. Dr Sarnoff emphasised that the iron-lung would still be necessary for respiratory types' of . spinal paralysis. The E.P.R. had been used in only nine major-cases so far, but it had been successful in all of them.

At present there were six of the devices in existence. Production of the devices would begin soon, and. they would.probably be available for distribution early in 1950. The cost of the new device would be 10 or 15 per cent, of that of an . iron-lung, | which was developed at the Harvard] School 20 years ago.