Phillip Drinker Testing the Second Respirator, 1928

Phillip Drinker Testing the Second Respirator, 1928

artificial respiration

This is the first respirator ever made for clinical use being tested on the roof of the Harvard School of Public Health in 1928. It was utilized for the first time on October 12, 1928 at Children’s Hospital, Boston to successfully restore breathing to a child with respiratory failure from infantile paralysis. She died five days later of cardiac failure. A year later another polio patient, this time at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, was placed in the respirator for four weeks and made a complete recovery.

1928

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Harvard Medical School Faculty and Staff Portrait Collection: D-W, ca. 1774-2001., Ser. 00138, M-CL02, M026.05