Ventilator History 101
It is safe to say that, of course, RespiraWorks is not the first ventilator creator. Knowing this can make you wonder who is. Who invented it? What inspired its creation? How long ago? What were the ventilators like? Were they effective? The most commonly known bookmark in the history of mechanical ventilation is the invention that has been titled “Iron Lung”, which gained a high demand due to being created just in time for the polio epidemic. However, as historians show, medical research for the respiratory system and artificial ventilation has been going on for thousands of years. Here is a fun summary of some ancient recorded scientists that became acknowledged in the books for the progress that they brought to the medical world. Obviously, there are probably many many more brilliant minds that have been hard at work in addition to these talented gems.
Have you ever heard of a man from the second century named Galen who was highly distinguished in the area of medical studies of the circulation system? While he was focusing on circulation, he started wondering whether or not the movement of the blood affects the function of breathing, vice versa, etc. All of the studies that he had been working on drew him to the hypothesis that yes, there is some relevance. Ironically, future medical examiners seemed to misinterpret some of the literature that explained the discoveries. Andreas Vesalius, who came later in the middle of the 1500’s, did seem to understand Galen’s studies enough to disagree with some of the conclusions and gave some corrections that were able to stick. One big example of this is a procedure that would eventually be called a tracheotomy.
Does anybody here remember the name Robert Hook from high school biology class? Approximately 100 years later (mid 1600’s), Mr. Hook was the one who started referring to a biological discovery of a teeny weeny object that he began to call a “cell”. He tested Galen’s hypothesis on a dog with cuts in the chest wall and pleura in 1667. How you may ask? He actually used a pair of bellows!
Skipping down the chronological respiratory path, we are now in the 1700’s. Now get ready for a soap opera, because there was a little confusion about who was getting credit for this one. Who discovered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Evidently, someone named John Griffin made a little mistake by forgetting that, 13 years prior to his report, it was William Tossach who tried this on a whim and ended up saving the life of a man who had stopped breathing from a fire.
Isn’t this fascinating? We haven’t even gotten to the 1800’s yet, or to the use of “the drinker respirator” during the 20th century polio epidemic in the United States! Stay tuned for more history lessons, because we haven’t even reached the climax of the story yet. Just wait until the body-enclosing ventilation devices start getting made in the 1800’s.
