Philip Drinker

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Philip Drinker (December 12[citation needed], 1894[1] in Haverford, Pennsylvania[1]–October 19, 1972[2] in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire[2]) was an industrial hygienist[2] who invented the first widely used iron lung in 1928 with Louis Agassiz Shaw.[2]

Drinker's father was railroad-man and Lehigh University president Henry Sturgis Drinker;[1] his siblings included lawyer and musicologist Henry Sandwith Drinker, Jr., pathologist Cecil Kent Drinker,[2], businessman James Drinker, and biographer Catherine Drinker Bowen.[1] After graduating from Princeton in 1915,[1] Philip Drinker trained as a chemical engineer at Lehigh for two years.[1]

Drinker was hired to teach industrial illumination and ventilation at Harvard Medical School[1] and soon joined his brother Cecil and colleagues Alice Hamilton and David L. Edsall on the faculty of the nascent Harvard School of Public Health[2] in 1921[2] or 1923.[1] He studied, taught, and wrote textbooks and scholarly works on a variety of topics in industrial hygiene;[2] the iron lung itself was originally designed in response to an industrial hygiene problem—coal gas poisoning[2]—though it would become best known as a life-preserving treatment for polio. Charles Momsen credited Drinker "and his friends" for their assistance with gas-mixture experiments that ultimately made possible the rescue of the survivors of the USS Squalus in 1939.[3] During World War II, Drinker directed the industrial hygiene program for the United States Maritime Commission.[1] After the war, he advised the Atomic Energy Commission.[1]

Drinker served as editor-in-chief of The Journal of Industrial Hygiene for over thirty years[1] and, in 1942, as president of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, to which he had belonged since its inception.[2]

He retired from Harvard in 1960[2] or 1961.[1]

He was inducted into the US National Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2007.

He and his wife Susan[4] had a son, bioengineer Philip A. Drinker.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lehigh University, P. C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. Distinguished Alumni: Great Talents & Bright Minds web series. Philip Drinker '17. Accessed March 18, 2007.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Sherwood, R. J. "Obituaries: Philip Drinker 1894–1972." The Annals of Occupational Hygiene. Vol. 16, pp. 93-94. Pergamon Press 1973. Available online by subscription.
  3. ^ Momsen, Charles B. "Rescue and Salvage of U.S.S. Squalus." Lecture delivered to the Harvard Engineering Society on October 6, 1939. Text available online. Accessed March 17, 2007.
  4. ^ "Philip Drinker." American Industrial Hygiene Association journal. May 1973: 34(5), 179-181. Available online by subscription.
  5. ^ Sallans, Andrew. "iron lung." online exhibit. University of Virginia, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library. 2005. Accessed March 18, 2007.
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