









































1 J Global Clinical Engineering Vol.3 Issue 1, 2019

Editor’s  Corner
When was the last time you thought about your 

next breath? Will it happen? Do I need to do 
something to get it going? Like you, I do not find myself 
thinking about it. Fortunately, the respiratory center 
controlling our breathing is in our upper brainstem 
where the medulla oblongata and the pons send signals 
to the muscles that control involuntary respiration and 
cause breathing to occur. Unfortunately, before the 
discovery of a safe and effective vaccine, some children 
were infected with the poliomyelitis virus that leads to 
paralysis. There is no cure for the devastating effects 
of polio but it can be prevented by the vaccine and the 
volume of global cases since 1988 have been reduced by 
99.9% according to Rotary Club (https://www.endpolio.
org/). This becomes much more personal and touching 
after one of our own Editorial Board members shared 
with me the story, from over a generation ago, about the 
loss of his sister at the age of 12 from polio.

In 1927 Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw (faculty 
members at Harvard University) invented a mechani-
cal respirator powered by an electric motor that could 
temporarily maintain artificial respiration in a person. 
A couple of years later, calling it the tank respirator, 
inventor John Emerson refined the design and adopted 
cost-cutting engineering enabling this “contraption” to 
become a staple within medical facilities. 

The cost of the tank respirator was, at the time, equal 
to the cost of a house. In the 1930s, Drinker and Harvard 
University took John Emerson to court, claiming he had 
infringed on patent rights by altering Drinker’s iron lung 
design. Emerson defended himself by making the case 
that such lifesaving devices should be freely available to 
all. Emerson’s tank respirator was first used in 1931 in 
Rhode Island, USA. Years later, when Jonas Salk (inventor 
of the polio vaccine) was asked whether he would patent 
his polio vaccine and make a fortune, he replied that the 

vaccine belonged to everyone, making the comparison, 
“How could you patent the sun?”

The first human use of a mechanical ventilator was 
recorded in 1909 when George Poe, Jr. was able to revive 
Moses Goodman using the apparatus, he called Machine for 
Inducing Artificial Respiration that he patented two years 
earlier. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Poe#/
media/File:Poe_patent.gif). About a century later, due to 
the coronavirus pandemic, once again the world is becom-
ing concerned over the lack of availability of mechanical 
ventilators (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/
covid-19-ventilator-shortage-manufacturing-solution/).  

The history of the mechanical ventilator is the story 
of how an engineering solution addressed critical and 
urgent medical needs and healthcare’s growing de-
pendence on technology. Also highlighted was that the 
technology lifecycle, from innovation to use, and from 
upgrades to accessibility, must be professionally managed 
by competently trained experts like clinical engineers. 
To be considered competent, clinical engineering edu-
cation and training must include innovation, disaster 
preparedness, and assets management strategies. 

Unfortunately, during this COVID-19 pandemic, like 
the previous era of the polio virus, lives that technology 
could have saved, were lost. Yet, the ability to connect 
challenges with engineering solutions just like John 
Emerson did about 90 years ago is the contribution to 
better care that clinical engineers do every day. In the 
profession that creates and ensures that technological 
tools are patient-ready there no room for error or mis-
takes. The professional principals that every engineering 
training program must incorporate into their curriculum.

Regardless of the era humans live in, they can always 
find ways to collaborate and disseminate information, 
and there is no better time than now to appreciate and 
participate in the Global Clinical Engineering Journal. 

http://www.globalce.org
http://www.globalce.org
https://www.endpolio.org
https://www.endpolio.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Poe
Poe_patent.gif
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid


J Global Clinical Engineering Vol.3 Issue 1, 2019  2

Today, there are still few polio-stricken patients like 
Paul Alexander from Dallas, Texas, who are surviving 
thanks to the engineers and technicians who can keep old 
iron lung machines going for over six decades (https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gplA6pq9cOs). Like Paul 
Alexander says in the linked video “I’m not crippled. I’m 
a human being.”  So, let me ask you again: when was the 
last time you thought of your next breath? How fortunate 
we are not having to think about it. I hope you will enjoy 
reading the rest of this Journal and remember to send 
me your feedback.

Today, tomorrow, together!

Dr. Yadin David

Copyright © 2021. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY): Creative Commons - 
Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright 
owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction 
is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

http://www.globalce.org
http://www.globalce.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gplA6pq9cOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gplA6pq9cOs

