He contracted polio at the age of nine and underwent a grueling rehabilitation that entailed confinement in an iron lung, muscle transplants and relearning to walk, painfully, with crutches.
In this manner, the iron lung mimics the physiological action of breathing: by periodically altering intrathoracic pressure, it causes air to flow in and out of the lungs.
His father died from polio when he was child, and he subsequently caught the disease; he spent 18 months in and out of hospital, including time in an iron lung.