A brief history of assisted mechanical ventilation

Abstract

The act of breathing is synonymous with living, no other organic function has been as closely related to life, disease and death as breathing, so it is not surprising that as soon as man began to study the physiology of the respiratory system he initiated the first attempts to achieve artificial breathing. Although closely linked, the history of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mechanical ventilation, i.e. that which is performed by machines when a patient is unable to perform adequate breathing effort can be easily separated and studied separately.
The following notes consist of just a few adarmes that show the development of one of the medical technologies that has most revolutionized the care of the seriously ill patient and is often ignored in the texts and publications of the history of medicine.