A Pediatric Iron Lung Machine: and some story behind the photo.
Rotary and other groups were once allowed to borrow this historical piece but it was getting beat up so the museum started saying no to loan requests. However, they did give permission to photograph if IMHM could have a copy of the photo. I was not allowed to touch the equipment so had to do the best I could with it’s existing position and lighting. I was disappointed with what I was getting until I tried placing a flash underneath. At first that didn’t work either because it was too ‘directional’ depending on where it was ‘aimed’. More in desperation than intent I took a white plastic grocery bag (I had brought a black backdrop cloth in it) scrunched it up and and wrapped it around the flash. I took this photo from a step ladder so I could get a shot down into the machine. An interesting note: the floor is red because this is located in the original “Autopsy Room”. “Back-in-the-day” they had painted the floor blood red so it didn’t look so messy with all the blood around…

I took this Photo at IMHM for friend involved in Indianapolis Sunrise Rotary Club. A 30×40 mounted blowup was on display at 2nd floor Atheneum ArtSpace beginning for First Friday for one month during an “End Polio Now” exhibit. This photo (and others) were given to IMHM but I can not find anywhere on their website. So it was published and used by Rotary Club but it doesn’t seem to have gone any further than that. Below is some other info  about IMHM-it’s a cool place to visit; kind of creepy, but cool.

The Indiana Medical History Museum is located in the Old Pathology Building on the grounds of the former Central State Hospital on the near westside of Indianapolis. The museum represents the beginning of scientific psychiatry and modern medicine while the building itself is the oldest surviving pathology facility in the nation and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The museum maintains a collection of scientific artifacts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a completely authentic setting. Constructed in 1895 and augurated in 1896, the nineteen-room Pathological Department Building, as it was then called, is equipped with three clinical laboratories, a photography lab, teaching amphitheatre, autopsy room, and library.