The Mary MacArthur Respirator Unit
The length and frequency of using an iron lung also varied case to case - some patients used the iron lung for a few hours a day, some at night or while sleeping, and others constantly. Individuals often "graduated" from the iron lung if their paralysis proved temporary. Others would require the assistance of a tank respirator all or some of the time for the rest of their lives.
This meant that at the height of the polio epidemics of the mid 20th century, hospitals across the country had dedicated respirator units. Boston Children's Hospital opened the Mary MacArthur Respirator Unit at the Wellesley Convalecent Home in 1950, in collaboration with the March of Dimes.
The unit was funded by the Mary MacArthur Fund founded by renowned actress Helen Hayes, the "first lady of American theater." The fund and unit was named and begun in memory of Hayes' daughter Mary, who had died after contracting polio as a young adult.
The Rocking Reporter was a self-published newspaper by polio patients in the Mary MacArthur Memorial Unit of Boston Children’s Hospital, providing first-person perspectives of child, teenage and adult patients with polio, both those in the unit and at home as “alumni.” It's so named for the rocking bed that patients would often "graduate" to after the tank respirator. The beds had the ability to similarly stimulate breathing by rocking and back and forth.
Click the page below to explore selections from the newspaper, published from 1954 to 1958.
