RT Journal Article
T1 ‘Iron lung’ as metaphor
A1 Farrah  Lawrence-Mackey
YR 2022
VO 
IS Spring 2021
K1 iron lung
K1 metaphor
K1 Modernity
K1 senses
K1 sound
AB Negative pressure ventilators (NPVs) were used from the 1930s to keep patients with chest paralysis alive and they remained in use during the first half of the twentieth century. At the time paralysis was most commonly associated with poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis).[1] The most frequently used ventilators in the UK were the Both type, which were made of plywood to make them more cost effective. Despite their materiality, these wooden ventilators were, and are still, more commonly known as ‘iron lungs’. By considering the uses of the metaphor ‘iron lung’ prior to the invention of the NPV, I will argue that ‘iron lung’ became eponymous as it connected the material reality of the NPV with imagined sensory experiences for publics in the UK, though often in ways that contradicted earlier metaphors of modernity and sound.
NO The terms polio, poliomyelitis and infantile paralysis are used interchangeably throughout this article, though it should be noted that during the first half of the twentieth century this disease was most commonly called infantile paralysis.
NO This research has been undertaken as part of a Medicine Galleries Research Fellowship at the Science Museum, London and funded by Wellcome. I am also indebted to Selina Hurley, Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum, London for pointing me in this direction. Having taken me to look at the collection of NPVs in the SMG collections at Blythe House, Selina noted that she hadn’t seen anyone tackle the question of why they were called ‘iron lungs’ even though they were made of wood.
NO I am not attempting to trace the root metaphor in this article, which I would argue is an impossible task, instead I am highlighting uses in the UK of the term ‘iron lung’ that were common and well understood and that fed into the continued use of ‘iron lung’ as a descriptor for NPVs.
NO McGuire, Virdi and Hutton have discussed some of the issues surrounding Nuffield’s donation, specifically that the more easily transported Bragg-Paul and similar cuirass-style positive pressure ventilators were being tested alongside different forms of negative pressure ventilation by the Medical Council around the time that Nuffield made his donation. Many medical professionals including the Medical Council in Britain were not happy with Nuffield’s donation as the results of the report had not yet been published and it was not certain that the Both type lung was the most effective or practical respirator available. The donation forced the hand of the profession in most instances where the available Both type lungs meant that these were the ones used in hospitals even when other forms of ventilation may have been better or preferred.
NO The March of the Dimes was an American fundraising campaign, originally set up by Franklin D Roosevelt, which called for American children to send a dime to support polio research. Eddie Cantor called the campaign the March of the Dimes, a play on the title of the radio series March of Time.
NO The earliest appearance in the archive of the term ‘iron lung’ being 1750, no references appear prior to this date. The sheer volume of data after Lord Nuffield’s donation of over five thousand Both type iron lungs in 1938 makes analysis of uses after this date a necessarily broader project, which is ongoing.
NO There are, of course, other newspaper resources for this period that are not London specific, such as 19th Century UK Periodicals and British Periodicals. However, the restrictions to access placed detailed consideration outside the author’s economic reach. Access restrictions are an ever-increasing concern for an academic community and while this is not the topic of my paper it is worth highlighting that academic freedom and the ability to pursue new avenues of research is significantly stemmed by the ever increasing concern of access restriction in a progressively casualised and precarious profession.
NO Widmer discusses the question of who ‘the poet’ is in the context of translation. In the Cheltenham Mercury article it can be either or both Virgil and Dryden. 
NO Though not the only or first use of the phrase, it seems that this was the most commonly present metaphoric use of the term ‘iron lung’ in newspapers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from which we can see direct interaction/translation/evolution with other uses during the period and with later use to describe the NPV.
NO 23 March 1933, this was the first article to reference iron lung in terms of the NPV.
NO This poem was repeated fourteen times in various newspapers across the country.
NO See also: Anon, ‘“Man in the Iron Lung” Sails for Home’, Dundee Courier, 7 June 1937, 6; Anon, ‘“Man in the ‘Iron Lung’”’, Catholic Standard, 16 July 1937, 4; Anon, ‘Frederick Snite’, Illustrated London News, 6 November 1937, 23; Anon, ‘Pictures’, Illustrated London News, 3 July 1937, 34; Anon, ‘“Iron Lung” Man’, Portsmouth Evening News, 2 June 1937, 12; Anon, ‘“Iron Lung” Man Reaches Shanghai’, Leeds Mercury, 4 June 1937, 1; Anon, ‘“Man with Iron Lung” Doing Well’, Portsmouth Evening News, 10 June 1937, 4; Anon, ‘“Iron Lung” Man Home’, Gloucester Citizen, 21 June 1937, 8; Anon, ‘Man with “Iron Lung”’, Belfast Newsletter, 23 June 1937, 7; Anon, ‘“Iron Lung” Man’, Belfast Newsletter, 19 October 1937, 11; Anon, ‘Boys Life Saved in Iron Lung’, Belfast Newsletter, 8 November 1937, 7; Anon, ‘Boys Life Saved in Iron Lung’, Sheffield Independent, 8 November 1937, 1; Anon, ‘Boys Life Saved in Iron Lung’, Linlithgowshire Gazette, 12 November 1937, 8
NO All of these deal with patients in America, including Frederick Snite. By 1937 there was an explosion in use of the term ‘iron lung’ to describe the NPV with 155 uses that year. Between 1 January 1937 and 31 December 1938 there were 1,208 uses of the phrase to describe various forms of NPV and some positive pressure ventilators, ‘iron lung’ having become eponymous with respirators broadly speaking. 
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/211512
UL https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/iron-lung-as-metaphor/
WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30