While poliomyelitis — a debilitating disease that caused paralysis — spread at epidemic levels throughout the early 1900s, vaccination programs mean that many today know little about the effect the illness had on our community or the country.
However, a new exhibit at the Lewis County Historical Museum changes that.
In 1941, the Twin City Centralia Labor Union raised $1,600 to donate an iron lung to Lewis County to help treat victims of polio.
Reportedly, the first patient to use the lung was a polio victim named David Louis Stefon in 1946. Though now it is an outdated technology, it saved many lives before new techniques were developed. The negative pressure respirator enabled the patient to be able to breathe when they were unable to do so themselves. With the patient, from the neck down, sealed inside of the chamber, a negative pressure was created forcing their lungs to expand and contract, allowing the person to breath with the aid of the respirator.
The Lewis County Historical Museum recently re-acquired the county’s negative pressure ventilator, more commonly known as an “iron lung” after a 20-year hiatus from our collection. It was being stored in the basement of the Hill View Apartments — historically Centralia General Hospital.
The lung had been loaned out for a display for Providence Centralia Hospital, then, somehow, ended up in the basement of the apartment building. Considering the engineering that it took to get it out of the basement, it’s hard to say how it got there in the first place.
At the museum, we knew of the lung’s whereabouts for some time, but getting it back to street level was an issue. With a new owner of the complex wanting the space for other things, a few members of the board and a couple friends recently volunteered their time to rescue this unique artifact and return it to the museum for proper care and preservation.
It was truly a team effort to retrieve the iron lung from the former boiler room of the old hospital. Historical Museum Vice President Doug Peterson brought his flatbed trailer and electric winch. President Peter Lahmann provided a hydraulic jack and the planks we used to slide it up the eight steps of concrete stairs to ground level. Steve Garrett, member at large, loaned us two of the casters that were missing from the legs of the contraption. Then other members and volunteers worked out the details of removing loose parts and things that would get in the way of the removal. The new landlord of the complex was kind enough to lend us a few things that helped to make the removal a bit easier as well.
Although, the prospect of being “trappe” in an iron lung is a frightening one, the negative pressure respirator is an important artifact for the museum to retain. It is a great example of the progress of modern medicine and is a reminder of the frightening time in history when polio sickened many people during the 1950s. The lung is currently in storage, but if you would like to visit the museum and see it for yourself please stop by! Eventually it will be a part of a larger exhibit of health care-related artifacts.
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Jason Mattson is the executive director of the Lewis County Historical Museum.
