The Both mechanical respirator.

[Place of publication not identified], s.n.], [1939]

1 [complete] film reel (14:30 mins) : silent, black and white; 16mm.
3 [separate] film reels (15 mins) : : silent, black and white; 16mm.

Part of the film collection comprising of 55 items donated by Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, Oxford, to the Wellcome Trust in 2008. In 1937, Lord Nuffield established a clinical chair of anaesthesia in Oxford amidst some controversy that anaesthesia was even an academic discipline. The collection is a mixture of clinical and educational films made or held by the department to supplement their teaching dating from the late 1930s onwards.

The Both portable respirator was invented by an Australian engineer, E. T. Both. Both iron lungs went on to be manufactured by Lord Nuffield in England from the late 1930s onwards and then were distributed all over the British Empire, including Australia. There is an example of the iron lung featured in this film at the Science Museum, London. Iron lungs were used to provide artificial respiration caused by paralysis most often brought upon by contracting polio.

A School Films Production. Directed by CLG Pratt MA MD MSc, Photography & Production by Norman Spurr.

Copyright previously held by Nuffield