positive-pressure ventilation
Books
- Breathing by Hand The Copenhagen Polio Epidemic and the Birth of Intensive Care · Liszt Think
In August 1952, Copenhagen’s Blegdam Hospital faced catastrophe as fifty paralyzed polio patients arrived daily with only one iron lung available.
- The City and the Hospital…ry. His afternoon holds a hernia repair, a thyroidectomy. The surgical schedule runs smoothly, no complications, no unexpected demands. The positive-pressure ventilation he employs in these cases, controlled breathing through endotracheal tube, remains technically and conceptually separate from the negative-…
- The First Paralysed Breath…e forceful inflation of lungs by air delivered under pressure through an artificial airway. The concept was not new; anaesthetists had used positive-pressure ventilation during surgery for decades, manually squeezing breathing bags connected to endotracheal tubes. But it had never been applied to polio, neve…
- A Theory of Poisoned Air…same negative-pressure principle. It has no positive-pressure ventilators. It has no protocol for intubation in polio. The very concept of positive-pressure ventilation in this setting raises objections: forced airflow might spread virus, damage fragile lungs, demand technical expertise unavailable in epide…