MANY POSSIBILITIES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19373, 10 July 1937, Page 14

MANY POSSIBILITIES

ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATOR MACHINE IN AUCKLAND (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, last night. A recent cable message telling how an American millionaire’s son suffering from infantile paralysis was conveyed from China to Chicago enclosed in an “iron lung,” which alone preserved his life, contained little news for the staff of the Auckland Hospital. Since January last the institution has had such a machine designed and made in Auckland as a result of collaboration between the medical and engineering departments and technically named a “Drinker respirator” after the American who originally devised it.

The apparatus consists of an airtight steel cabinet, in which the patient lies with only his head protruding. Connected to the cabinet is an electrically-driven pump which raises and lowers the air pressure within in regular pulsations, causing the patient to breathe, even though his respiratory muscles are unable to function.

The machine was deemed to be necessary equipment for the hospital because of the possibility that infantile paralysis cases under treatment there would develop paralysis of the respiratory system. Deaths from this cause, in fact, have been reported from different parts of the Dominion in recent months. The pump is driven by a variable speed electric motor through double reduction belts ahd the operator can regulate the strength of the pulsations as the doctor in charge may direct. Used Only Once So Far The white enamelled cabinet is made of electrically welded sheet steel and is mounted on a tubular metal stand of table height supported on castors. So far the apparatus has been used only once at the hospital. An infantile paralysis patient was admitted in a moribund condition, scarcely breathing and on the point of death. He was placed in the cabinet and artificial respiration was applied. Very soon his natural colour returned and he was able to speak. The result appeared to be satisfactory when he suddenly collapsed and died. A post-mortem revealed brain lesions, which were sufficient to account for death, and it was then considered that he could not have survived. Apart from the treatment of infantile paralysis cases, the machine has many possibilities of usefulness in asphyxiation due to electric shock or noxious gases provided the patients can be brought to it quickly enough.