In an Iron Lung

It had been a wonderful, strenuous summer, and 13-year-old Birdsall Sweet was just going into the last half of the eighth grade in Beacon, N.Y. But in September, husky, athletic Birdsall suddenly fell ill. After five days he was admitted to a hospital in Poughkeepsie. Like many another youngster in the epidemic year of 1931, Birdsall Sweet had polio.

His arms and legs were already paralyzed. Before the day was out, his breathing muscles gave out, he got blue in the face, and had to be put in an iron lung. Birdsall Sweet was never to escape entirely from his prison as long as he lived.*

False Hopes. Gradually, auxiliary breathing muscles came into play, and Birdsall spent longer & longer periods outside the lung. He regained almost 20 pounds of his lost weight. Doctors believed that, he could be weaned of the respirator. But he was unable to sleep without it. The doctors gave in and put the boy back.

Not until he was 15 did Birdsall Sweet finally lose his fear of being away from the respirator. He learned to eat outside it. His wheel chair was put in a station wagon which carried him around the Dutchess County countryside. But then he began suffering from hay fever and eczema, and kidney trouble began to appear. At 16 he had pneumonia.

Deadly Grip. Through most of his ups & downs Birdsall Sweet kept his spirits high, learned to make the best of his ironclad life. He learned checkers, chess and cards, dictated his plays to a nurse. He followed baseball avidly, improved his bridge with the help of visiting Vassar girls. He read, with a nurse turning every page, and worked his eyes so that he soon had to have strong glasses. Last year he learned canasta.

Birdsall never lacked the best of care. At first the state and county split most of the $6,000-a-year cost of his iron lung and nursing care. In 1939, when he became 21, and ineligible for crippled children's aid, Governor Herbert Lehman rushed through arrangements to provide other funds. From the first, he was faithfully attended by the same physician, Dr. Scott Lord Smith.

But as the years went by there was nothing more that anyone could do. Polio would still not release him from its deadly grip. A spinal curvature developed and gradually worsened. The ravages of kidney stones sapped his disease-ridden body. His strength was almost gone. Last week, after Birdsall Sweet, 32, was finally released from 18 years and seven months in his iron lung, Dr. Smith performed his last, sad service. On the death certificate he wrote: "Acute nephritis due to chronic kidney stones due to poliomyelitis."

*A month ago, Fred Snite Jr. marked the end of 14 years in an iron lung.

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