Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 9-22
Copy of a drawing
of the infant
resuscitator
developed by
Dr. Egon Braun.
internationally for over 40 years, until J. J. J Leroy of France challenged its use in an
1829 memoir. Leroy criticized the lack of control in using bellows and suggested a type
of bellows that could be regulated for the specific patient's size and weight. As a result
of this criticism, the bellows method lost support and went out of use around 1837, by
which time many doctors had returned to basic methods of manual inflation and comfort
assistance (Keith, 1906).
Many methods of artificial resuscitation were developed during this period, of which
most were focused on different medical emergencies that demanded artificial resuscitation,
including stillborn infants or chloroform asphyxia (Emerson and Loynes, 1978; Keith
1906).
In 1889, O. W. Doe reported to the Obstetrical Society of Boston on the development of
an infant resuscitator box by Egon Braun in Vienna. This early form of artificial respirator
obtained a pressure seal by having the child's mouth pressed against a rubber diaphragm
opening while the rest of the body was entirely enclosed within the wooden box, as can
be seen in Figure 9-22. The operator blew into the pipe to increase the pressure within the
box, which forced the chest to compress. Sucking on the pipe reduced the pressure in the
box, which in turn caused the chest to expand and draw air into the lungs.
According to the report, the operator would repeat the process 20 to 30 times in a
minute. Doe reports that Braun had used the artificial respirator device in 50 cases and
was completely successful (Green, 1889).
There were a number of additional early experiments with artificial respiration devices.
In 1832, John Dalziel of Scotland developed a box to ventilate a “drowned seaman,” and
E. J. Woillez designed an artificial respirator called a spirophore in 1876 that was said to
have looked and operated much like the Drinker or Emerson iron lung. After the death of
his child from respiratory complications in 1881, Alexander Graham Bell designed and
built a test-version “vacuum jacket” with hand-operated bellows much like those on the
iron lung. His original sketch and notes for the device are shown in Figure 9-23.
9.6.2 Polio
Beginning in the second decade of the twentieth century and lasting through the late 1950s,
much of the world experienced widespread yearly polio epidemics that reached every part
