Children being taken for an airing, outside Wanganui Hospital in 1937. The girl second from left is Patti Kirkwood (now Spriggens). Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum Collection ref: 2001.1.4
Children being taken for an airing, outside Wanganui Hospital in 1937. The girl second from left is Patti Kirkwood (now Spriggens). Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum Collection ref: 2001.1.4
Museum Notebook
What do Frida Kahlo, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Francis Ford Coppola and Arthur C. Clarke have in common?
They all contracted polio in their youth. A highly infectious viral disease, the parallels between polio and Covid-19 are eerie, and past polio epidemics are a grave reminder of the power of vaccination.
Because polio was largely eradicated in the west half a century ago, it's easy to forget the devastating effect it had on sufferers and their families' lives.
New Zealand's first significant outbreak of polio was recorded in 1914, when 25 people died.
During a 1947 outbreak in Auckland, a lockdown of sorts ensued where children were prohibited to travel across New Zealand, and quarantine of 14 days applied to all home contacts under 16 years old.
It was reported that in Auckland hospitals, children were not allowed visitors, even their parents. The most polio deaths documented in one year was 173 in 1925.
Two of the worst symptoms of polio are difficulty breathing and muscle paralysis which can lead to permanent disability or death.
There is no cure for polio, but thankfully, due to an effective immunisation programme introduced in the 1950s and 1960s, polio has largely been successfully eradicated from New Zealand and the developed world.
According to the Ministry of Health, the Western Pacific region was declared polio-free in 2000.
The forebodingly named iron lung was a device used to help treat polio sufferers who would otherwise be unable to breathe unaided.
Cumbersome, expensive and so heavy that floors often needed to be reinforced to support them, an iron lung is a mechanical respirator.
Iron Lung photo courtesy of Aotea Utanganui Museum of South Taranaki. Photo / Kathy Greensides
These large wheezing and sighing metal canisters, in which a person's body is enclosed from the neck down, work by alternating high and low air pressure, enabling the patient's chest cavity to expand and contract, mimicking ordinary breathing.
Invented in the United States in 1927, the first iron lung was used at Boston Children's Hospital in 1928 where it saved the life of an 8-year-old girl with polio.
Sir Thomas and Lady Duncan Trust established two polio hospitals in New Zealand, one of which was in Whanganui.
In the Whanganui Regional Museum's Te Oranga - Getting Better exhibition, which runs until February 2023, is an iron lung that dates from the 1940s and 1950s from the Pātea Hospital.
On loan from the Aotea Utanganui Museum of South Taranaki, it was manufactured by Both Equipment Ltd.
The large white iron lung on display is on a frame and castors and is an imposing and sombre sight.
A 1939 Tesla Studios photograph also featured in the exhibition depicts a moving scene of young children being taken for an airing at Whanganui Hospital.
The girl second from left is Patti Kirkwood (now Spriggens), who was hospitalised for polio.
• Kiran Dass is Marketing & Communications co-ordinator at the Whanganui Regional Museum.
