On Oct. 12, 1928, the first iron lung was used at Boston Children’s Hospital by Harvard Medical School faculty members Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw to aid respiration.to preserve breathing function in patients with acute polio.

This early respirator for producing artificial respiration over long periods of time was designed and constructed by the donor, John Haven Emerson. Completed in July 1931, it was first used in the summer of that year at the Providence City Hospital, Providence, R.I.