It was in the year 1924 that research on helium oxygen mixtures as a breathing gas really started. Tests were conducted in laboratory on animals by the chemist Joel Henry Hildebrand with R. R. Sayers and W. P. Yant from the Bureau of Mines. However it was not until 1939 when the first dive using helium-oxygen mixtures took place.
Category: Decompression Theory
First decompression tables released to the public
Haldane tables were adopted by the Admiralty Deep Diving committee of the Royal Navy after his report in 1908. It was also decided that they would be published and released to the public.
Haldane and the first staged decompression tables
In 1908, The Prevention of Compressed-air Illness published by John Scott Haldane, Arthur Boycott and Guybon Damant covers the detailed studies of Leonard Hill and their own on the cause and symptoms of decompression sickness. The publication also has the first table proposing staged decompression with stops to stop and avoid decompression sickness.
Leonard Erskine Hill theorized and tested the first continuous decompression
Around 1900, Leonard Erskine Hill theorized that recompression could be used to treat decompression sickness and slow decompression would prevent compressed air illnesses. He wrote the first slow continuous decompression tables. He used this method to compress himself and Major Greenwood to a pressure of around 6 atmospheres and successfully decompressed themselves by allowing 20 minutes at every atmosphere as the pressure was being lowered.
Boyle demonstrate unknowingly the theory of decompression sickness
Robert Boyle, using a viper under vacuum noted for the first time the formation of bubbles in living tissues. This is from the lowering ambient pressure that forces gas out of the tissues. This discovery made in 1760 stayed ignored for almost 200 years.
Haldane build the first compression chamber
It was in the year 1907 that Haldane build the first decompression chamber, aimed to help with the safety of deep-sea divers by allowing him to test his theories. In the next year, after experimenting extensively with animals, he devised the first set of decompression tables.