'Iron Lung' As Metaphor

Science Museum Group Journal ‘Iron lung’ as metaphor Journal ISSN number: 2054-5770 This article was written by Farrah Lawrence-Mackey 04-07-2020 Cite as 10.15180; 211512 Object focus ‘Iron lung’ as metaphor Published in Spring 2021, Issue 15 Article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/211512 Abstract 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. Component DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/211512/001 Keywords Iron Lung, metaphor, modernity, sound, senses When wood becomes iron Negative pressure ventilators (NPVs) were used from the 1930s to keep those suffering from chest paralysis alive and are most commonly associated with the treatment of polio during the first half of the twentieth century.[2] In one of the first articles on the negative pressure ventilator, Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw, the inventors of the single use NPV that commonly became known as the iron lung, instructed that the NPV should be made of ‘sheet metal (preferably sheet iron)’ and that the device would rest on an ‘iron frame’ (Drinker and Shaw, 1929). However, Drinker and Shaw did not call the device an iron lung. This was an epithet given to the machine by an unidentified journalist in the United States some time during 1929 or 1930 (Markel, 1998: 75).[3] The term appears to have been first used in the UK on 23 March 1933 in the Belfast Telegraph where it was said that a boy had been ‘put into an artificial respirator machine, or what is known as the “iron lung”’ (Anon, 1933). However, NPVs in the UK were not made of iron for long. Only two years after Drinker and Shaw’s version of the NPV was built, John Emmerson built a lighter and cheaper machine using aluminium. In 1938, Lord Nuffield made a vast donation of Both type ‘iron lungs’ to hospitals across the Empire. These NPVs were designed by the Australian John Both as a cheap and lightweight alternative and were made of plywood rather than iron (McGuire et al, 2020).[4] Despite the material reality of the machines, they were most commonly known by the Americanism ‘iron lung’, a term that became eponymous in French, German and English (Gould, 1995: 90). Thus the term ‘iron lung’ was a constructed descriptor of the NPV. It was not the same as the material reality of the object, but, I argue, described the lived experience, providing a shared and logical understanding of what the apparatus meant to the people that interacted with it both physically and conceptually (Voeglin, 2016: 64). The term ‘iron lung’ became eponymous for respirators in the UK during the first half of the twentieth century. This article offers some insight into how and why this came to be. Early metaphorical uses of the phrase ‘iron lung’ described steam engines, orators’ voices, artillery fire and large crowds, drawing on themes of modernity and sound. I argue that there was a ‘transference of feeling’ that reflected these ideas from earlier metaphoric use to the real and imagined sensory experiences of these new machines by those who interacted with them (Ricoeur, 2003: 124). Figure 1 Diagram from Philip Drinker’s patent for an artificial respirator, US Patent No. 1906 844, 1933 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/211512/007 There have been a number of important accounts by those who found themselves placed within the NPV having lost their capacity to breathe (Alexander, 1955; Mason, 2003; Presley, 2008; Rudulph, 1984; Woods, 1994). While offering unique insights into user experiences, Kerry Highly (2016: 7) has noted the socio-economic background of those able to write such narratives excluded accounts from minorities and poorer communities, which through public funding campaigns such as the March of the Dimes were already under represented.[5] Some, like Highley, have brought to light these under-represented narratives with oral histories and archival research that draw piecemeal moments from survivors’ lives, though the primary focus has remained American (Gould, 1995; Highley, 2016; Ott, 2016; Silver and Wilson, 2007). These patient narratives are highly personal, and in their rawness they allow little room for broader theoretical considerations. When patient narratives are utilised as part of more theoretically grounded historical works the focus tends to be on the story of polio (Gould, 1995; Highley, 2016). The majority of works that have tackled the history of polio have pointed toward the iron lung as an often horrifying symbol of the disease (Gould, 1995; Abraham, 2018; Berg, 1946; Daniel and Robbins, 1997; De La Bedoyere, 2005; Fisher, 1967; Kluger, 2004; Markel, 1998; Mawdsley, 2016; Paul, 1971; Seytre and Shaffer, 2004; Smallman-Ryanor et al, 2006; Wilson, 1963). Seytre and Shaffer noted that the name ‘iron lung’ ‘helped conjure up the terror that polio inspired in the public’s mind’; however, they do not delve into the implications of this statement (Seytre and Shaffer, 2004: 41). Deeper exploration of the metaphors that we use can highlight and ‘make sense of’ our experiences (Clow, 2016: 310). This article will trace some of the metaphorical uses of the term ‘iron lung’ over time in the UK, arguing that this use of language suggests interesting new ways of thinking about public perception of user experiences of this significant life-saving technology. This article is based upon a consideration of all appearances of the term ‘iron lung’ in the British Newspaper Archive (BNA) between 1750 and 1938.[6] Newspapers became the most profitable and dynamic print form by the end of the nineteenth century and were ‘securely implanted into the cultural landscape as an essential reference point in the daily lives of millions of people’ (Jones, 2016: 2–3). The ubiquitous nature of newspapers in nineteenth and early twentieth century life allows historical access to both cultural and linguistic trends. Thus, they are used here to consider popular understanding and use of metaphors. This paper uses the BNA as a primary source as it provides coverage from across the UK thus avoiding limiting the discussion to a London-centred perspective, as consideration of, for example, The Times newspaper archive would provide.[7] To contextualise these newspaper articles, the paper also considers biographies and other media. The primary aim of this article is to explore the metaphorical uses of the phrase ‘iron lung’ prior to the invention of the Drinker type respirator (the first negative pressure ventilator to be labelled as such) and the first decade of its use in the United Kingdom up to, and including, the year of Lord Nuffield’s substantial donation of Both type lungs in 1938. It will be noted that familiar uses of the metaphor engaged with both human and non-human sound and modernity, both positively and negatively construed. The ‘iron lung’ therefore came with baggage. Far from causing dissonance for perceptions of the NPV this baggage instead seems to have made the term eponymous in the UK, not only for Drinker respirators but for all forms of NPV, even encompassing positive pressure ventilators such as the Bragg-Paul (McGuire et al, 2020: 6). By the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ‘iron lungs’ were embodied in public and user perceptions of the NPV. Figure 2 © Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library Both type ‘iron lung’, London, England, 1950–55 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/211512/008 Component DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/211512/002 The ‘iron lung’ speaks Metaphors make sense of our experiences; they evolve and develop (Berger, 1980: 3, 5; Clow, 2016: 312). Unravelling the metaphorical uses of the phrase ‘iron lung’ over time will highlight these earlier meanings and how they linked to user and public experiences. Here I argue that, in part, the metaphorical uses of ‘iron lung’ manifested in references to the negative pressure ventilator rested on ideas of loudness, strength and modernity. Though it would be impossible to locate the first ever instance of the use of ‘iron lung’ as metaphor, the most frequently repeated use of the term in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries came from Dryden’s popular translation of the Aeneid (1697): Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, And throat of brass, inspir’d with iron lungs, I could not half these horrid crimes repeat: Nor half the punishments those crimes have met. Dryden’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (1697) is considered by many to be the ‘pinnacle of English Virgil translations’, in part because of his political engagement through the text, which scholars have sought to understand since its original publication (Widmer, 2017: 5). There was a general cultural awareness of Dryden’s translation of Virgil in the nineteenth century. For instance, newspapers such as the Cheltenham Mercury provided a single line from Book VI of the Aeneid, ‘throats of brass inspired by iron lungs’, and attributed it to ‘the poet’ with the expectation that their readership would understand this reference (Widmer, 2017: 25; Anon, 1862).[8] Direct quotations of the above phrase from Book VI appeared in 34 articles between 1800 and 1899.

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