BOY SAVED

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 10, 22 December 1932, Page 13

BOY SAVED

BY MECHANICAL BREATHER. INFANTILE PARALYSIS VICTIM. London, Dec. 7. Medical and mechanical science is triumphing over death. Thanks to a machine which for three weeks has been breathing for him, John Turner, an 18-year-old pupil at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, is alive to-day. The youth is a victim of infantile paralysis. Three weeks ago his condition became desperate; he could not breathe, as the disease had affected his lungs. He was taken to the Wingfield Morris Hospital at Hardingham, near

Oxford, and was kept alive by artificial respiration. Then it was remembered that Sir Robert Davis, the expert on respiratory matters—he is the inventor of the Davis apparatus which has saved so many lives in submarine disasters — had an American machine which breathes for human beings. UNITED STATES INVENTION. Sir Robert placed this “Drinker respirator ’ ’ at the disposal of the hospital—and to-day John Turner lives. He is making such excellent progress that his restoration to health is fully expected. “It is the only machine in the country and was sent to me nine months ago by Dr. Philip Drinker, professor of Physiology at Harvard University,” said Sir Robert Davis yesterday. “I am not exaggerating when I describe it as wonderful. It does actually breathe for a human being who cannot breathe for himself, and I am confident that young Turner would have had little chance of recovery if it had not been for this apparatus. This is the second time this particular machine has been used in a case of infantile paralysis. It is almost human.” AIRTIGHT CASE. The respirator is a big airtight steel case in which a patient is enclosed with his head outside the case. Under it is an electric pump which draws all air from the case, causing the patient’s chest to expand, and forcing him to breathe in a normal way. Valve mechanism restores the pre sure within the case and the patient exhales.