![Meet longest surviving iron lung patient kept alive by a machine for 70 years | Guinness World Records Meet longest surviving iron lung patient kept alive by a machine for 70 years | Guinness World Records](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/Images/iron-lung-patients-and-nurses-split-image_tcm25-741912.jpg)
Meet longest surviving iron lung patient kept alive by a machine for 70 years | Guinness World Records
Call the Midwife - Those who watched our Christmas Special will have seen a major story strand involving the scourge of polio, and treatment involving a machine called a negative pressure ventilator -
![Iron lung (c. 1933) used to "breathe" for polio patients until 1955 when polio vaccine became available is located in the Mobile Medical Museum, Mobile, Alabama - original digital file | Library of Congress Iron lung (c. 1933) used to "breathe" for polio patients until 1955 when polio vaccine became available is located in the Mobile Medical Museum, Mobile, Alabama - original digital file | Library of Congress](http://tile.loc.gov/image-services/iiif/service:pnp:highsm:05200:05216/full/pct:50/0/default.jpg)