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An early apparatus, designed
for escape from submarines. It consisted of watertight goggles, a nose
clip, a mouthpiece connected by flexible corrugated tubes with
inspiratory and expiratory valves to a breathing bag containing a carbon
dioxide absorbent chamber; cylinders of compressed air and oxygen- all
carried in front of the wearer- and a second bag which was worn on the
back, and was connected with a third cylinder containing compressed air,
the object of the second bag being to counterbalance the buoyancy of the
first bag and to keep the wearer vertically afloat. Both bags were
fitted with the usual relief valves. The breathing of pure oxygen at
pressure greater than one atmosphere plus was already at that time
considered risky, so it was deemed wise to dilute the gas with
atmospheric air. (note red;1904!).In 1904 Siebe Gorman & Co. Ltd.
Acquired the rights in ‘Oxylithe’, a special preparation of sodium
peroxide invented originally by the French savant, Professor Georges
Jaubert. This chemical, when breathed upon, gives off oxygen and at the
same time absorbs the carbon dioxide of the expired air. |
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