Iron Lung 4-Pack - Capsule hotel?

Here's something you don't see every day. No, not four Americans in Japanese capsule hotels. No, not people in iron lungs. Maybe you should just stop guessing and let me tell you, okay? Shut up. It's a completely airbrushed head where there was  no head before!

But first, what's an iron lung? Uuh, let's see. How to summarize. People who couldn't breathe on their own (usually from polio) were put in a machine like this one. An air tight seal is formed around the person's neck, and by using pumps to vary the pressure around the person's body, it effectively reproduced the process of respiration... if you can accept the fact that you're stuck in a giant metal tube. Good times.

Iron lungs were in widest use in the 40s and 50s, due to polio outbreaks. Polio is a viral illness that attacks the nervous system and eventually causes paralysis. Respiratory failure (paralyzed lungs) is one of the first ways polio tries to kill you. Since the mid-century, the polio vaccine has all but eradicated the disease (...but not if Jenny McCarthy has her way. Good job, retard.) People still need mechanical assistance with breathing for various reasons, but much smaller, portable ventilators now exist which allow some mobility and don't make you look like you live in The Matrix.

So what's this about a fake head? Check out the lady in the picture in the top at the back. It looks like they only had three models and had to paint in a fourth head. Either that, or for some reason or other, this model's face had to be completely replaced by an artist. Orrrr, she died shortly before the photo was taken and nobody noticed until after the shoot. Orrrrrr, the unfortunate woman not only suffered from polio, but had to be fitted with a prosthetic head, possibly due to a mishap in a magic show. Orrrrrrrrrrr, she's a mannequin who has trouble breathing, poor thing. Let's assume the head was just painted.