Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Iron lung
Summary
An iron lung is a type of negative pressure ventilator (NPV), a mechanical respirator which encloses most of a person's body, and varies the air pressure in the enclosed space, to stimulate breathing. It assists breathing when muscle control is lost, or the work of breathing exceeds the person's ability. Need for this treatment may result from diseases including polio and botulism and certain poisons (for example, barbiturates, tubocurarine).
The use of iron lungs is largely obsolete in modern medicine, as more modern breathing therapies have been developed, and due to the eradication of polio in most of the world. However, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic revived some interest in the device as a cheap, readily-producible substitute for positive-pressure ventilators, which were feared to be outnumbered by patients potentially needing temporary artificially assisted respiration.
The iron lung is a large horizontal cylinder designed to stimulate breathing in patients who have lost control of their respiratory muscles. The patient's head is exposed outside the cylinder, while the body is sealed inside. Air pressure inside the cylinder is cycled to facilitate inhalation and exhalation. Devices like the Drinker, Emerson, and Both respirators are examples of iron lungs, which can be manually or mechanically powered. Smaller versions, like the cuirass ventilator and jacket ventilator, enclose only the patient's torso. Breathing in humans occurs through negative pressure, where the rib cage expands and the diaphragm contracts, causing air to flow in and out of the lungs.
The concept of external negative pressure ventilation was introduced by John Mayow in 1670. The first widely used device was the iron lung, developed by Phillip Drinker and Louis Shaw in 1928. Initially used for coal gas poisoning treatment, the iron lung gained fame for treating respiratory failure caused by poliomyelitis in the mid-20th century. John Haven Emerson introduced an improved and more affordable version in 1931.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.