Object Details
maker
Warren E. Collins, Inc.
Description
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."
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.
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).
“Two Harvard Men Devised Respirator,” Boston Globe (Aug. 15, 1931), p. 11.
Joseph Rossman, “Drinker Patents Held Invalid,” Science 82 (1935): 221-222.
“Louis A. Shaw, 54; Respirator Expert,” New York Times (Aug. 28, 1940), p. 19.
“Prof. Philip Drinker Dies at 77; A Co-Inventor of the Iron Lung,” New York Times (Oct. 21, 1972), p. 36.
“Warren E. Collins Funeral Tomorrow, Scientific Appliance Maker Developed Oxygen Tent,” Boston Globe (Nov. 28, 1935), p. 21.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
1989.0398.01.01
catalog number
1989.0398.01
accession number
1989.0398
Object Name
iron lung
respirator
Other Terms
Iron Lung; Respirator
Physical Description
metal, steel (overall material)
glass (overall material)
foam rubber (overall material)
paint (overall material)
silver (overall color)
gray (overall color)
black (overall color)
orange (overall color)
brown (overall color)
Measurements
overall: 154.5 cm x 82 cm x 201 cm; 60 13/16 in x 32 5/16 in x 79 1/8 in
overall: 70 in x 43 in x 86 in; 177.8 cm x 109.22 cm x 218.44 cm
place made
United States: Massachusetts, Boston
See more items in
Medicine and Science: Medicine
Health & Medicine
The Antibody Initiative
Antibody Initiative: Polio
Data Source
National Museum of American History
Link to Original Record
Record ID
nmah_1057546