THE “IRON LUNG”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23708, 16 January 1939, Page 10

THE “IRON LUNG”

LORD NUFFIELD REPLIES TO CRITICISM INTENTION TO PROCEED WITH GIFTS LONDON, Jan. 13. “ If I waited to produce a perfect car I would be bankrupt. We must get on with the best available ‘ iron lung* and improve It as we proceed,” This was Lord Nuffield’s reply when he was told that experiments would probably result in improvements in the present types of “ iron lung.” This was disclosed by Professor Robert Reynolds Macintosh, now Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetics at Oxford University, in a letter in the Medical Journal, in reply to Sir Frederick Menzies. He reveals that Lord Nuffield consulted him asking if there was a reasonable prospect of lives being saved if many hospitals throughout the Empire had an “ iron lung.” When he answered in the affirmative, Lord Nuffield said: “ I will immediately order a thousand. It seems a piity to think that some are being used as coal’ scuttles, but it is more tragic to think of a life being lost because I had not spent £25 or £30.” A message from Capetown states that Lord Nuffield, replying to Sir Frederick Menzies, said: “ I have seen what ‘ iron lungs' can do, and I am satisfied. It is the youngsters I want to help.”

Sir Frederick Menzies, medical officer of health and school medical officer to the London County Council, who introduced the “ iron lung ” in Britain, in a letter to the British Medical Journal in regard to Lord ITuffield’s gift to hospitals throughout the Empire, said: “It is incredible that such advice should be given by anybody with practical experience of mechanical respirators. It is a thousand pities that the munificent generosity of one of the benefactors to medical science should be thus exploited. I hope it is not too late to prevent such wanton waste of benevolence. Respirators are passing through an evolutionary stage in which we are learning continually. It is the height of folly at present to standardise any one tyoe, but perhaps the worst mistake is l a general distribution when the majority of hospitals have not the slightest idea of its proper use:”