Mechanical ventilation
Although initially used to reduce the sequellae of spasticity associated with electro-shock therapy for psychiatric disease, curare found use in the operating rooms at Bellvue by E.M. Papper and Stuart Cullen in the 1940s using preparations made by Squibb. This neuromuscular blockade permitted complete paralysis of the diaphragm and enabled control of ventilation via positive pressure ventilation. Mechanical ventilation first became common place with the polio epidemics of the 1950s, most notably in Denmark where an outbreak in 1952 lead to the creation of critical care medicine out of anesthesia. At first anesthesiologists hesitated to bring the ventilator into the operating theater unless necessary, but by the 1960s it became standard operating room equipment.