Category: Early 20th Century

• The "Iron" Lung Experiments

  This theory claimed that early negative-pressure respirators, later known as iron lungs, were not principally intended to support breathing in living patients but were designed to restore life to the apparently dead. The theory drew on a real historical connection between early mechanical respirators and resuscitation research, especially work on coal-gas poisoning, electric shock, and respiratory failure. In rumor form, that resuscitation background was extended into the claim that physicians were experimenting with machines to reanimate the dead.