1,846 Comments for Linton State Hospital

I guess they would have had to wear diapers or be catheterized. Maybe those holes in the side were for tending to those needs. I wonder if the patient could breathe while those holes were open? That would have been truly terrifying if you stopped breathing every time they tended to your bodily functions

I hate to say it, but it wouldn't matter if you did want to turn over. If you had polio badly enough to need one of these, the rest of your body was paralyzed too.

I don't think most people were in these for thirty years. If I'm not mistaken, most folks did improve over time and regained some use of their bodies. I think some even made pretty complete recoveries. I don't know if I am allowed to mention the name of an author here, but a certain writer of racing mysteries told in his autobiography of how his wife had polio when she was pregnant with their first child. She was in an iron lung through most of the pregnancy, but she recovered completely and the child was perfectly fine.

gee lynne, I wish I'd known about this site back in July so I could have posted this when you might have actually seen it, but beautifully well said. I have been savoring this site, looking at it every night for over a week now. The more I read the comments, the more I was thinking exactly what you just said so well. If all we come away with is titillation and horror, we haven't learned very much. I taught for three years in a home for troubled (mentally ill) youths and I learned that this problem is never as simple as it seems. It is only too easy to tar all mental health workers with the same brush, but most are hard working decent people trying to make the best of a bad situation. Lets not forget in all this, that the patients are mentally ill, which means that their brains work in bizarre and disfunctional ways. Some of them aren't safe in the outside world, by which I mean that they will hurt themselves or be hurt by someone else. Some are too trusting, making them easy marks for thugs and criminals. Some have no grasp of reality. And some are predators in their own right. So while some can survive in the outside world with the help of medications, some left these hospitals only to be homeless, hungry and cold. Others left only to commit a crime and are now in prisons where they are getting abuse the likes of which was unheard of in these hospitals. Sometimes I think that closing these old institutions was a truly unkind thing to do to the patients. They were not equipped to go out into the world and make a living. Thats why they were in the hospital in the first place.

Now this shot is impressive.

Wow, thanks for your memories christy, and I'm glad your friend is doing well!

your right. they make a loud whoooshing sound and a loud bang.

Hi love your pics. back in 1957 my little friend came down with polio, it was awful, it attacked her whole body she went through horrible pain, she had to live in one of these for almost two years, she had back operations they put rods in her spine to hold her back up, all her muscles were affected. she was just bone no muscles at all. she lived in a top of the head to the bottom of her butt full body cast. You asked what it sounds like when someone is in an iron lung. picture this your right your on your back with your head sticking out and this LOUD humming sound with a LOUD bang from the machine pushing the air into the chamber then another loud bang when the air is leaving the chamber and you have to live with this sound all the time. I asked my friend does it hurt and she say yes very much because this machine is almost making you suck in the air and then making you push it out of your lungs like someone is pushing on your chest. Yes it hurts and it''s like a nighmare that wont stop. to this day my friend still has nightmares of living in that machine, and living with polio. But she is alive, and doing great.

"To know the darkness is to love the light,
to welcome dawn and fear the coming night."

I see your shadow :)

Wow, these projectors were probably not used much past the mid 1950's. The round cans above and below the projector head (open door white interior) were to help contain nitrate film fires. The 2 white wires running up the back indicate the lamps were changed from 'Carbon Arc' to xenon bulbs (also mid 50's).

Note the section of rope and the sliding door above the projector window. Nitrate film burned so fast and hot they setup the booth to close itself off from he rest of the building automatically if the film caught fire.

And after clicking through all the other photos, Great job on these photos. They are ever so cool and a little creepy.

Looks like my 8th grade science class room... >>

There is a drive-in theater near me that still uses this type of projector... or they did a few years ago when I was last there.

A baby prison cell with a soap dispenser on the wall above. Those gosh darned baby convicts!

disturbing just down right disturbing.