Paul Alexander, 'The Man In the Iron Lung', Has Died - Slashdot
source link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/03/14/055244/paul-alexander-the-man-in-the-iron-lung-has-died
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Paul Alexander, 'The Man In the Iron Lung', Has Died (bbc.com) 48
Posted by BeauHD
on Thursday March 14, 2024 @09:00AM from the inspirational-stories dept.The lung, which he called his "old iron horse," allowed him to breathe. Bellows sucked air out of the cylinder, forcing his lungs to expand and take in air. When the air was let back in, the same process in reverse made his lungs deflate. After years, Alexander eventually learned to breathe by himself so that he was able to leave the lung for short periods of time. Like most polio survivors placed in iron lungs, he was not expected to survive long. But he lived for decades, long after the invention of the polio vaccine in the 1950s all but eradicated the disease in the Western world. [...] Advances in medicine made iron lungs obsolete by the 1960s, replaced by ventilators. But Alexander kept living in the cylinder because, he said, he was used to it. He was recognized by Guinness World Records as the person who lived the longest in an iron lung.
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You forgot the part about how Dogs and cats will be living together now!
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Total anarchy!
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What? Who would be advocating for withholding care from a person who is requesting said care? The doctors? His family? Please define "they" in this case? Who is pushing any of what you said on 6 year olds?
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In the United States, that would be the role of the insurance companies.
In civilized nations, this role does not appear to exist, but I am stuck here so I don't have first hand experience.
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And you live in your own imaginary made up world too ? Everything you say is false.
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Are you living in an alternate universe where Germany won WW2?
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You mean like this? https://www.bmj.com/content/36... [bmj.com] Fortunately, her parents sued, and won. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-en... [bbc.com] At least as of 2022, she was doing better but I'm too lazy to search more.
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It's a tremendously sad case. The rights and wrongs of it are far from clear to me and "doing better" is rather lacking in medical clarity. There are several of these cases each year it seems, we should have a better way of dealing with them. Framing somethign like this is hard, but perhaps something along the lines of:
Family/individual gets to choose the treatment they wish to pursue
Insurance must honor the terms of the policy on payment (which may include not paying)
Clinicians must be able to refuse cases
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As far as I can tell, "doing better" means she breathes on her own and no longer needs a urinary catheter. Still nothing to show that anyone is still "in there".
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Is this similar to that case a year or so ago where the dad wanted to take the kid to Italy as well but they had pretty much confirmed there was little left of the kids brain than just the pure involuntary brainstem functions with zero chance of any recovery?
It's all very tragic but at a certain point trying to extend life in that fashion could be considered abuse.
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The guy's a whiner. He doesn't believe people should have control over their own bodies. Government knows best which means it gets to decide in true small government fashion.
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> We are well beyond our cultural zenith now. Just wait the next phase is when we stop burring our dead.
We're already there when people can convert their deceased loved-ones into compost:o
Human composting is an eco-friendly alternative to traditional burials and cremation [webmd.com]-
I mean who really has an issue with this? It's not like these are new concepts either:
Sky Burial [wikipedia.org]
What get's done to decaying meat sacks is between the person and their family and anyone with a problem with it can probably mind their own business?
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> I mean who really has an issue with this? It's not like these are new concepts either: What get's done to decaying meat sacks is between the person and their family and anyone with a problem with it can probably mind their own business?
These decaying meat sacks represent a lifetime of memories with the deceased and it behooves one to treat the remains with respect. The anthropologists tell us that one of the first signs of humans evolving from a primate to human was when they started burying their d-
Sure but you are focusing on the "burial" aspect and not the "general mourning, respect and reflection on death and the individual" which is what anthropologists *actually* are referencing, not the method of what get's done to the body because as I just demonstrated, different cultures have different values regarding that.
Burial just happened to be the most obvious way for an ancient culture to accomplish 2 goals: a ceremonial aspect and getting the rotting disease sack someplace where it won't cause proble
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And what is wrong with that? Why the hell would I want to overpay for my body to be infused with toxic chemicals, slathered with makeup I'll never see, dressed in clothes I'll never see, put in a similarly overpriced box, and buried in a plot of land that I'll also overpay for and that will not be put to a more productive use; all just so that maybe one or two generations of family and friends might occasionally make a trek there and leave overpriced flowers which I will also never see? If they want to re
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My dad set aside money in his will specifically for a post death family trip to the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian islands that was more than enough to cover plane tickets, accommodations, food and anything else. While we were there with the plan of dispersing his ashes there I know for a fact he was very fond of the idea of everyone having a fun trip to Kauai in his name and we all had a great time.
Anyways, I think your party idea is a fantastic one.
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Stephen Hawking is another good example of this, too.
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The inside of your head must be fascinating and terrifying to have given you such a worldview. I don't mean this as an insult, because I am genuinely concerned that your views are not so rare these days. The trouble with perception is that even if it initially is out of step with reality, people eventually force reality to bend to it. I want you to spend at least an hour a day thinking happy thoughts, because the mindset yoy have now is not good for you or anyone else around you.
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When I read stories like this I have to shudder. Life inside a metal tube with pumps and gizmos keeping you alive to spend more time in the metal tube. While some posters in here advocate for grasping for that last millisecond of life, no matter the situation, there is a whole spectrum of outlooks to a whole spectrum of people.
For my own outlook, I'd seriously prefer not to live in a situation where I had to live in a steel canister. I'm certain that if I was placed in one because of polio, I'd conveniently "forget" to get back in at some point. But that's me. I love doing things, going places, and experiences. Others might not.
A convenient self-analysis might be, would you rather spend life in prison or be executed? I'd take execution, and as quickly as possible as a preference. I have always been up front with people and my family - once I hear that bell tolling, like a terminal disease diagnosis - I'm checking out. I've seen too much of that deterioration, pain and loss of dignity to think otherwise.
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by FalcDot ( 1224920 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:12AM (#64314821)
Do note that this happened to him when he was only six years old. I'm convinced your own love of doing things and going places may have started that young, but was shaped and nurtured over the following years. This man experienced vastly different formative years. It's no surprise that his outlook on life is very different from yours.
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I hope that you (or I) never have to find out, but people seem to be able to adapt to their limits - be it a disability or being in prison.
That man started living in the iron lung when he was 6, so this is the life he knew and got used to. As I understand, he did not want to die and it seems that he managed to accomplish some things (like getting a law degree and practice law) that would seem pointless and difficult considering the condition he was in - the difficulty to write things down or read books for
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I would like to point out that this disease was worldwide and common throughout most of human history. Vaccines stomped it out.
We have resurgences now and then because no solution is perfect, but the reason the vast majority of us have never had to worry about polio and may not have even heard of it until now is thanks to vaccines.
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The most important line in the article:
Advances in medicine made iron lungs obsolete by the 1960s, replaced by ventilators. But Alexander kept living in the cylinder because, he said, he was used to it.
Reading that it went from an incredible story to one of insanity (consider that he required people's assistance at all times).
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Would it be one of those tubes inserted through a hole your throat? Wouldn't call opting for the iron long that crazy. Though the story is a little unclear since apparently he was even able to breathe on his own at times too.
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Ventilators are used because they're cheaper and more convenient in some ways, not because it's better for the patient. The iron lung pulls air into the patient's lungs more naturally, so the patient is able to speak and doesn't need to be sedated to oblivion. Having tubes shoved in your airways is not a pleasant experience, and it's not something that works well in the long term. Most iron lung patients don't want to lose the last bit of their agency so there is (or used to be) a community of iron lung pat
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This take is incredibly popular -- many, perhaps most, people (who aren't actually facing imprisonment) claim they would choose death over going to prison.
And yet, while prison suicide rates are much higher than in the general public, it's still only a small fraction of the prison population who, when it comes down to it, actually kill themselves. It turns out that when the choice becomes real rather than theoretical, people will cling much more tightly to life than they think they will.
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It's funny how so many people in good health will talk a big game about such things but somehow when faced with death the vast majority cling on to life for all they're worth. Maybe you're one of the rare ones that when faced with terminal illness you'll walk your talk but to talk with such assurance in regards to something that so few ever follow through on just sounds both arrogant and naive to me.
It's like the guy who talks about how if they were ever facing an armed attacker they'd just kick their ass a
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Humans are innately adaptable, it's really our absolutely most beneficial evolutionary advantage.
I got to find it again but I had read a study that surveyed amputees and it showed after a certain amount of time the vast majority of them qualify their own quality-of-life around the same as non-amputees. It becomes remarkably easy for things to just become "the new normal".
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That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, except for polio.
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Except for most diseases, actually.
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Well, unfortunately, soon it came to be
Mr. Frump's dying day
And now I bring to you the very last thing
That Mr. Frump had to say...-
I see I am not alone in that thought...
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Not mentioned in the news: he died of covid. We're currently creating a new generation of people wounded by a virus in long covid patients. For polio, we broke out all our medical and engineering ingenuity to eradicate the virus and to support its survivors. Instead today we are carefully ignoring covid and the huge numbers of people it leaves injured or disabled.
So after all that, for an accomplished life-long polio survivor to be killed by covid has some really painful poetry to it.
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Well, Measles are back, why not Polio?
We can do it! Make America Sick Again.
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Yeah except the measles brought by illegals, have an outbreak in Chicago from the "new arrivals", meaning diseased unvetted randoms the Biden administration lets pour over our border and then makes states pay billions for this lawlessness.
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People could get their vaccines and not have that problem...
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Measles, regardless of where it comes from, has been a preventable illness since the 1960s.
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He survived polio all those years but somebody brought Covid to him.
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Oh, horrors, who would take a vaccine that might make you stupid... (chance being one in how many decimal places to the right?).
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