The Almanac

October 12

One thing science and human progress accomplished on this date.

  1. 1928

    The iron lung saves its first patient

    At Boston Children's Hospital, doctors placed an eight-year-old girl in respiratory failure from polio into a new machine that breathed for her, the first clinical use of the iron lung. She revived within a minute. The device kept thousands of patients alive until the polio vaccine ended the need for it.

    Source: Wikipedia

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