Pump unit for Smith Clarke Senior iron lung. Serial number on pump is P200. Complete machine.
Production date
c.1950
Production organisations
Cape Engineering Company
Labels
Joan Copley from Bradford spent 4-6 weeks in an iron lung (probably a Smith-Clarke, although it would have been a Junior model) in 1950, aged six. She volunteered to let us record her story through a transcribed interview in September 2022, the full version of which is attached to this record. Her memories include:
"All I can remember was that it was warm. They put this rubber collar round your neck so that it seals it, and it smells of rubber… it’s awful. They way they looked after you – the little holes at the side that they used… I can’t remember what they did toilet-wise, but I think they had to change me. I didn’t have any real food – they only fed me liquid paraffin, Lucozade and Wall’s ice cream.
"You could feel it as well – you could feel the pressure. You could feel it sort of pressing on your chest – you felt it go down, like that, and then back, all the time. I would say it was quite noisy – to me it was. I know I just – when I came out of there, I used to say ‘don’t put that collar on me’.
"I remember [that] when they started to take me out, they would put a watch hanging from the mirror or something above my head, and they would say ‘You’re coming out when this hand gets to 2 o’clock’. They would take you out for 30 seconds, [then longer every day after that]."
