Overview

During the first half of the twentieth century, several great innovations designed to treat respiratory failure were developed. The emerging fields of bioengineering and biomaterials developed devices to assist in medicine and therapy. One of the great bioengineering feats was the development of the "iron lung" to assist breathing. Invented by Philip Drinker (1894-1972) in 1927, this device provided respiration for those whose lungs could not breathe on their own. Drinker's machine, originally made from a household vacuum cleaner, some materials from the laboratory, and a large steel box, was used to treat one of the most frightening conditions of the day—infantile paralysis, now called poliomyelitis.

With the aim of treating people who were dying from drowning or other interruptions of breathing, Edward Sharpey-Schafer (1850-1935), an English physiologist, decided that a mechanical method or artificial respiration could start breathing...