Iron Lung
name: label: maker
content: Warren E. Collins, Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: Philip Drinker (1894-1972) was an industrial hygienist at the Harvard Medical School. Louis Agassiz Shaw, Jr. (1886-1940) was a physiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Working together in the late 1920s, the two men devised a respirator for polio patients that, by 1930, was known as an iron lung. Drinker and Shaw received the John Scott Medal for this work in 1931. An inscription on this example reads "DRINKERS RESPIRATORS / PATENTS PENDING / Made By / WARREN E. COLLINS INC. / Specialist in Metabolism Apparatus / 555 HUNTINGTON AVE., BOSTON, MASS. / NO. 3."
label: Description
content: Ref: L. A. Shaw and P. Drinker, (1929), "An Apparatus for the Prolonged Administration of Artificial Respiration: I. A Design for Adults and Children," Journal of Clinical Investigation 7 (1929): 229–247.
label: Description
content: Philip Drinker and Charles F. McKhann, “The Use of a New Apparatus for the Prolonged Administration of Artificial Respiration: I. A Fatal Case of Poliomyelitis,” (1929).
label: Description
content: “Two Harvard Men Devised Respirator,” Boston Globe (Aug. 15, 1931), p. 11.
label: Description
content: Joseph Rossman, “Drinker Patents Held Invalid,” Science 82 (1935): 221-222.
label: Description
content: “Louis A. Shaw, 54; Respirator Expert,” New York Times (Aug. 28, 1940), p. 19.
label: Description
content: “Prof. Philip Drinker Dies at 77; A Co-Inventor of the Iron Lung,” New York Times (Oct. 21, 1972), p. 36.
label: Description
content: “Warren E. Collins Funeral Tomorrow, Scientific Appliance Maker Developed Oxygen Tent,” Boston Globe (Nov. 28, 1935), p. 21.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Health & Medicine
label: See more items in
content: The Antibody Initiative
label: See more items in
content: Antibody Initiative: Polio
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0398.01.01
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0398.01
label: accession number
content: 1989.0398
objectType: label: Object Name
content: iron lung
label: Object Name
content: respirator
label: Other Terms
content: Iron Lung; Respirator
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal, steel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: foam rubber (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paint (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: silver (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: gray (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: black (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: orange (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: brown (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 154.5 cm x 82 cm x 201 cm; 60 13/16 in x 32 5/16 in x 79 1/8 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 70 in x 43 in x 86 in; 177.8 cm x 109.22 cm x 218.44 cm