Iron Lung Patient, c. 1960

This historic 1960 photograph depicted a nurse caring for a victim of a Rhode Island polio epidemic, who was inside an Emerson respirator, also sometimes referred to as an iron lung machine. Devices like these, were used by polio patients, whose ability to breath thwarted due to paralysis of those muscles needed to complete the acts of inhalation and exhalation. See Phil images 6524, 6525, 6526, 6527, 6529, 6530, 6531, 6533, and 6534, for pictures of an iron lung that was donated to the CDC’s Global Health Odyssey, by the family of polio patient Mr. Barton Hebert of Covington, Louisiana, who had used the device from the late 1950s until his death in 2003. Notice the mirror attached over-head that enabled the patient to see about his environment.

Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Image Library