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Equipment and Procedures

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The Physician’s Guide to Diving Medicine

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Abstract

For at least three centuries hyperbaric chambers have been used for a variety of scientific and medical applications. British physician H. Henshaw is credited with being the first to use a hyperbaric chamber for medical treatment (Simpson 1857). In 1664 he published an essay in which he proposed to use an airtight room (domicilium) constructed of masonry where the sick person could remain while the surrounding air was compressed or rarified. He used an organ bellows to compress and rarify air “. . . to help digestion, to promote insensible respiration, to facilitate breathing and expectoration, and consequently, of excellent use for the prevention of most afflictions of the lung.” With the advent of the air pump in 1650, Otto van Guerick provided the instrument with which early “pneumatic chemists” and physicians could begin to define the hyperbaric environment. In his studies of pressure-volume relationships, Sir Robert Boyle experimented extensively with laboratory animals, and, in 1670, observed bubbles in living tissue as a result of pressure changes on the eye of a viper. Diving bell operations to 60 ft, for up to 90 min, were conducted by Edmund Halley in 1690, and by 1716 he had published The Art of Living Underwater. However, it was not until the advent of the air compressor in 1790 that a large chamber could be pressurized for extended durations, thus making compressed air chambers practical.

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  1. Paul J. Sheffield
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  2. George B. Hart
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  3. David H. Peterson
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  4. Walt Bergman
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  1. Undersea Medical Society, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    Charles W. Shilling , Catherine B. Carlston  & Rosemary A. Mathias ,  & 

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Sheffield, P.J., Hart, G.B., Peterson, D.H., Bergman, W., Hamilton, R.W. (1984). Equipment and Procedures. In: Shilling, C.W., Carlston, C.B., Mathias, R.A. (eds) The Physician’s Guide to Diving Medicine. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2671-7_14

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