Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using an iron lung, dies at 78

Martha Lillard, the last American polio patient to use an iron lung, has died in Oklahoma at the age of 78. Her death, confirmed in widespread reports today, marks the closure of a distinct chapter in the history of the disease in the United States.

For decades, Lillard relied on the negative pressure ventilator, a mechanical respirator that sustained her breathing after she contracted poliomyelitis during childhood. While modern respiratory technology advanced significantly over the ensuing decades, Lillard and a shrinking number of survivors continued to use the heavy steel cylinders, citing their specific effectiveness for the muscular paralysis caused by the virus.

At the height of the mid-20th-century polio outbreaks, hospital wards across the country were filled with rows of iron lungs. The machines kept thousands of patients alive before the widespread distribution of vaccines largely eradicated the disease in the United States, leading to the gradual disappearance of the devices from medical facilities.

Lillard's reliance on the machine required constant personal and mechanical maintenance. As the decades passed and production ceased, she and other long-term users faced the increasing challenge of sourcing replacement parts for the obsolete equipment, relying on mechanics and custom fabricators to keep the life-saving devices operational.

The passing of Lillard signifies the end of a long medical era. It highlights the enduring personal consequences of the early polio epidemics, serving as a final link to a generation whose lives were permanently shaped by the mechanical interventions required to keep them alive.