Vestiges of another time resurface in the news.
Iron lungs are now a thing of the past, as is the disease affecting thousands of patients that they kept alive for many years, poliomyelitis.
One of them, the American Paul Alexander, has just died at the age of… 78!
Professor Jesus Gonzalez, head of the respiratory medicine and rehabilitation department at La Pitié Salpêtrière hospital (AP-HP) and president of the French-speaking pneumology society (SPLF), returns for Le Parisien to the incredible story of these big machines.
When did iron lungs appear?
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