Iron lung photo exhibit at Melnick Museum

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

“Life in the Lung,” a new exhibit at the Rose Melnick Museum at Youngstown State University, opens Friday and runs through Aug. 17.

The exhibit features 20 photographs of patients in respirators, many in iron lungs. The photographs range from 1930 to 1959, when polio was at its peak in the United States and respirators were just coming into use. Most of the photographs will be accompanied by their original captions.

The photographs were loaned to the museum by Steve DeGenaro of Poland, a graduate of YSU’s respiratory-care program and a collector of historical medical photography.

Among the items in the Melnick is a bright yellow iron lung from the early 1950s.

The museum at 655 Wick Ave. will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday for the YSU Summer Festival of the Arts. Otherwise, the museum is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday by appointment. Call 330-941-4662, or email clnespor@ysu.edu to make an appointment. Admission is free.