‘Iron lung’ as metaphor

Lawrence-Mackey, Farrah

‘Iron lung’ as metaphor

Download

Name

2023-11-16_IronLungFLawrence-Mackey_FINAL.pdf

Description

visibility:open

Size

306.13 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (CRC64NVME)

IJf51cUxPNM=

Resource type

Journal article

Creator (person)

Lawrence-Mackey, Farrah

Date published

May 26, 2021

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). 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.