Seventy years ago, in April 1955 after his invention developed from killed polio virus had
been tested in one of the largest clinical trials in history, American virologist Jonas Salk’s
polio vaccine was officially declared ‘safe, effective and potent’.
It was an unprecedented scientific breakthrough in the control of the spread of one of the
most dreaded diseases of the 20th century.
Polio, or Poliomyelitis, also known as Infantile Paralysis, is a highly infectious viral disease primarily affecting the nervous system, with flu-like symptoms, brain inflammation, and in severe cases, paralysis. In 1964 Albert Sabin’s oral polio vaccine administered as a drop delivered on a sugar lump was released and became available in Australia in 1966. Both Salk and Sabin altruistically refused to patent their vaccines – allowing widespread distribution.
The first iron lung, made of metal and large and cumbersome, was reportedly used to treat polio America in 1928. (Australian nurse Sister Elizabeth Kenny began a new method of treatment using warm compresses and massage in 1932.)
In January 1939 the Glen Innes Hospital Board consisting of President W E Lightfoot, CH Wood, HC Menzies, OA Doust, RH McGee, FG Johnstone, JR Souter, NK Sligo, DW Abbott and acting secretary F Nicholson were advised by the Hospitals Commission that an order had been placed for an Iron Lung for Glen Innes.
The Glen Innes Examiner May 16, 1939, …‘President reported that he and Mr. Menzies had opened the two crates in which the Nuffield ‘iron lung’ was packed in Wright Heaton’s store in an endeavour to find some directions as to its assembly. No directions were enclosed … ‘
Lord Nuffield, British philanthropist car manufacturer, gave part of his factory to build these iron lung respirators and to provide them free to the hospitals in the Commonwealth.
How did they work? ‘The machine is completely air-tight enveloping the patient’s body with an opening at one end through which the patient’s head protrudes. The application of air pressure causes the chest to expand, and contract causing the lungs to inflate and deflate.’ A small electric unit operated the large bellows. If the hospital electricity supply failed the boiler room staff were called in to manually pump the bellows.
The is in the Jeannie Ross Fraser Memorial Medical Wing at the Land of the Beardies Museum.
