A little boy walked up to homeplate in an empty baseball field, with his bat and ball in hand.
As he threw the ball up in the air, he proclaimed, "I am the best ball player ever!" He swung with all his might, but missed.
He did the same thing and missed again.
He picked up the ball, tossed it up one more time, said "I am the best ball player in the world!" Then he swung and missed again.
"Wow!" he said. "What a pitcher!"
Iron lungIn 1928, the Iron Lung was used by its first patient, a young girl at the Children's Hospital in Boston. It was an artificial respirator that enabled her to breathe despite being paralyzed by polio. This negative pressure ventilator, invented by a young Harvard doctor, Philip Drinker, was the first widely used device of its kind. From the neck down, the patient's body lay in a sealed galvanized iron box. The 3 x 7 ft, 700-lb apparatus was powered by two household vacuum cleaners. As air was pumped out of the metal box, the patient's lungs drew in air, which was expelled as the air pump cycle next increased pressure, in a cycle to mimic a normal breathing rate.« |
