Hyperbaric Chambers and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

HBOT Therapy

"Hyperbaric chambers and hyperbaric oxygen therapy have been in use for centuries, as early as 1662. However, hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been used clinically since the mid 1800's. HBO was tested and developed by the U.S. Military after World War I. It has been used safely since the 1930's to help treat deep sea divers with decompression sickness. Clinical trials in the 1950's uncovered a number of beneficial mechanisms from exposure to hyperbaric oxygen chambers. These experiments were the forerunners of contemporary applications of HBO in the clinical setting. In 1967, the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) was founded to foster the exchange of data on the physiology and medicine of commercial and military diving. The Hyperbaric Oxygen Committee was developed by the UHMS in 1976 to oversee the ethical practice of hyperbaric medicine..."

"Oxygen was discovered independently by the Swedish apothecary Karl W. Scheele, in 1772, and by the English amateur chemist Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), in August 1774. In 1783, the French physician Caillens was the first doctor reported to have used oxygen therapy as a remedy. In 1798 the Pneumatic Institution for inhalation gas therapy was founded by Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808), a physician-philosopher, in Bristol, England. He employed Humphrey Davy (1778-1829), a brilliant young scientist as superintendent of the Institute, and the engineer James Watt (1736-1819), to help manufacture the gases. The institute was an outgrowth of the new knowledge about gases (such as oxygen and nitrous oxide) and their manufacture. However, therapy was based on Beddoes' generally incorrect assumptions about disease; for example, Beddoes assumed that some diseases would naturally respond to a higher or lower oxygen concentration. As might be expected, the treatments offered no real clinical benefit, and the Institute succumbed in 1802."

Modern use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in clinical medicine began in 1965 with the work of Churchill-Davidson and Borema.