VENTILATOR

Breath is the main key to human life, without breath even a healthy person, let alone a sick person, cannot survive.

It is said that there comes a time in life when, especially in a state of illness, another human being or an machine is needed to restore his consciousness.

A few centuries before the modern era, when medical science was not even a name, the wise and the noble individuals used to try their best to restore breathing in such moments in the lives of sick people, using ancient remedies, Which sometimes proved effective and sometimes failed.

With the passage of centuries and eras and the new wave of innovation in human life, in today's modern world, these traditional and ancient remedies have been replaced by medical science, one of the main reasons for which is biomedical engineering, which we have mentioned in our previous article.

Today, the preparation of new and modern devices and machines with the help of biomedical engineering is providing timely treatment of patients and important support to the medical science in life-threatening situations. 

One of the important devices and machines is the ventilator, which not only provides support to doctors in difficult situations, but also plays an important role in saving the patient's life.

In 1937, Australian inventor Edward Both invented the world's first ventilator, Which later became known as the Both respirator.  

The initial model of both ventilator was developed in 1928 by American industrial hygienist Philip Drinker with the help of Louis Agassiz Shaw, a physiology instructor at Harvard University.

The use of this masterpiece of biomedical engineering occurred in the early twentieth century during the first wave of the polio virus epidemic. In its early days, this life-saving machine was called the Iron Lungs, It was a negative-type pressure ventilator, Between 1931 and 1937, Both Both and American inventor John Haven Emerson successfully innovated these ventilators. 

Here, we would like to add to the knowledge of our esteemed readers that two different types of ventilators have been developed in the world of biomedical engineering so far: negative pressure ventilator and positive pressure ventilator.

Although negative pressure ventilators were widely used during the polio outbreak, the use of this technology has almost been eliminated today in the presence of positive pressure ventilators. 

The method of use of these ventilators was completely different from today's modern ventilators.

IRON LUNG NEGATIVE PRESSURE VENTILATOR

In terms of their structure, these ventilators corresponded to a box-shaped chamber that covered the patient up to the chest and it was necessary to move the patient into it for use. This chamber created negative pressure outside the patient's chest to draw air into the lungs.

POSITIVE PRESSURE MODERN VENTILAOR

On the other hand, there are modern positive-type ventilators that transfer air to the lungs through special tubes and masks, whose function is to maintain air pressure while the patient inhales according to different situations. Usually, these ventilators are connected to modern software and screens that provide various types of analytical reports to assist the doctor during the treatment of the patient. 

In 1949, John Haven Emerson, with the help of the Department of Anesthesia at Howard University, developed a mechanical aid for anesthesia, in the preparation of which the bicycle company Stormy Archer from England provided special assistance. 

With the invention of the ventilator in 1937, a series of innovations gained momentum in which different countries, organizations, doctors, scientists and industries have played an important role from time to time and even today this invention of the biomedical industry is playing an important role in the health sector, an important example this is corona virus epidemic in 2019, which gradually engulfed the whole world.

After all of our research and analysis, we will definitely say that this invention is a necessity, So the credit does not go to any one inventor of this invention, but to every scientist, inventor and doctor in the world who understood the need for this invention.

What is your opinion about the ventilator? 

Please let us know about your thought in the comment section, 

Thank you.

Written by Syed Murtaza Hassan