On this day in 1927, the first iron lung was installed at Bellevue hospital in New York for the post war polio epidemic. The first iron lung was developed and patented by Phillip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw. The received U.S. Patent Nos. 1,834,580, 1,906,453, and 1,906,844,

However, when these patents were asserted against John H. Emerson, a later entrant in the field, who made valuable improvements to the technology, they were all found to be invalid. Collins v. Emerson, 10 F. Supp. 885 (D. Mass. 1935), although the First Circuit reversed as to the middle patent (U.S. Patent No. 1,906,453). Collins v. Emerson, 82 F.2d 197 (1st Cir. 1936).

The patents were found invalid over the Woillez publication from 1876. The district court noted that the only evidence tending to show that the respirator described by Woillez was ever used is contained in a publication by Knapp, and there was no evidence that it received any substantial commercial use. However the court also correctly noted that the statute 35 USC 31) “makes a prior publication more than two years old the equivalent of a prior use as an anticipation.” One of the Court of Appeals judges believed “[T]he changes from the crude apparatus of Woillez to the practical and useful respirator of the plaintiff’s patents seem to me to have involved invention,” that should have saved the first patent as well, but did not carry the day.

The contributions of Drinker and Shaw and of Emerson were important to the care and comfort of numerous patients, particularly during the polio epidemic, and were important steppingstones to the respiration technology we use today. Drinker’s work was also important in the development of naval rescue equipment. Emerson went on to work on breathing equipment high-altitude flights and SCUBA equipment.