[From the XXXX epidemic to the founding of artificial respiration centres, intensive care units and centres for home mechanical ventilation].

@entity1 @entity3328 @entity3316 @entity544 @entity204 @entity68
In 1952, Copenhagen was confronted with a @entity3328 epidemic that involved the respiratory musculature in large numbers of @entity1 . The anaesthetist B. Ibsen, who established @entity544 intoxication due to severe @entity3316 as the cause of @entity204 , proposed that the @entity1 be treated by tracheostomy and positive pressure respiration in order to achieve better ventilation than with an @entity68 lung. In the Netherlands, it was decided to organise the control ofthe epidemics on a nationwide basis. Various hospitals were asked to set up artificial respiration centres. In addition, the Beatrix Fund was set up in order to collect money for combating @entity3328 . The epidemic reached the Netherlands in 1956. In Groningen University Medical Centre, 74 @entity1 were admitted, of whom 36 had to be ventilated. In two cases, the mechanical ventilation could not be stopped and one of these was ultimately discharged home with chronic ventilation in 1960, thus becoming the first @entity1 in the Netherlands to be given mechanical ventilation at home. The mechanical ventilation centres developed into the intensive care units as we know them today. Most of the forms of treatment now in use are based on the techniques thought up and elaborated by the pioneers working in the mechanical ventilation centres. The latest development in this series is the development of centres for home mechanical ventilation.
