Memory bank, December 12

The man who developed the iron lung, Phillip Drinker, was born December 12, 1894. He would have been 33 years old when the apparatus was introduced, which was in 1928. June Opie, a New Zealander who was paralyzed by polio -- all she could move was one eyelid -- spent 10 weeks in an iron lung. The story of her recovery was the basis of her book, Over My Dead Body.

Dick Francis wrote a novel in which the protagonist's wife was in an iron lung. The first time I read it, I was up half the night. Tension. Forfeit won an Edgar for Best Mystery Novel of the Year. The thing I remember most about the book is the wife in the iron lung and a desperate race to keep her safe.