Q 01/05

Which machine did Texas attorney Paul Alexander rely on for almost 72 years after childhood polio?

A) A heart-lung machine

B) A dialysis machine

C) An iron lung

D) A hyperbaric chamber

Answer · why

C) An iron lung

An iron lung breathed for Alexander from 1952, the longest anyone has spent in one. He taught himself to gulp air so he could leave it for growing spe...

Q 02/05

Which CPR training manikin has a face copied from the death mask of a girl reputedly drowned in the Seine?

A) Rescue Randy

B) Resusci Anne

C) SimMan

D) Harvey

Answer · why

B) Resusci Anne

Resusci Anne was unveiled in Norway in 1960 by toymaker Åsmund Laerdal. The mask she borrows is known as L'Inconnue de la Seine, the unknown woman of ...

Q 03/05

Which gas is mixed with oxygen to help patients breathe through dangerously narrowed airways?

A) Hydrogen

B) Neon

C) Argon

D) Helium

Answer · why

D) Helium

Helium is so much less dense than air that the blend, called heliox, meets less resistance in tight airways and takes less effort to breathe. Hospital...

Q 04/05

Which small birds did physiologist John Scott Haldane send down British mines in the 1890s to warn of deadly gas?

A) Sparrows

B) Canaries

C) Wrens

D) Robins

Answer · why

B) Canaries

Canaries were in use by 1896, a year after Haldane proposed warm-blooded animals as living alarms. British pits kept the birds until electronic detect...

Q 05/05

Which US president's premature son Patrick died of a lung disorder in 1963, spurring research into newborn care?

A) Dwight D. Eisenhower

B) John F. Kennedy

C) Lyndon B. Johnson

D) Richard Nixon

Answer · why

B) John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy lost Patrick after just 39 hours to hyaline membrane disease, now called infant respiratory distress syndrome. The death put the condi...