THE PULMOTOR
"My father read in the paper to-day about a new machine called the pulmotor, which he said was one of the greatest inventions ever brought out," said our boy friend one day in the winter of 1911-12.
"Yes, it is a great invention," replied the scientist, "and like so many other big things it is so simple we wonder how it is no one was bright enough to think of it before. I suppose most of us are too busy trying to make money."
"My father said it would be a fine thing for humanity and that it would save hundreds of lives every year."
"That is true, and the pulmotor is just about the newest invention of our time, along those lines. When I first heard of it, I wrote to a friend of mine in Chicago, where it was brought out, and asked him about it."
"How does it work?" asked the boy, and ever willing to explain the marvels of science to his young friend, the scientist took a pencil and a piece of paper to illustrate as he talked.
As every boy knows, oxygen is the property in the air we breathe that gives us life. Also, every boy knows that physicians and surgeons use pure oxygen stored in iron tanks to restore respiration to the lungs of their patients when breathing has almost stopped. Until the invention of the pulmotor, how ever, this oxygen was simply introduced into the patient's lungs by placing the tube in his mouth and turning on the valve.
The pulmotor makes the patient breathe—because it carries on the function for him artificially. "In Chicago this winter," said the boy's friend, "there were several cases where the pulmotor brought back to life people who apparently were dead, from asphyxiation, or gas poisoning. The machine is most successful where breathing has stopped through some unnatural interference, and the rest of the organs are physically intact, but of course it can be used in all surgical cases just as the ordinary oxygen tank is used.
"One case, and probably the one about which your father was reading," continued the boy's friend, "was that of a family of three, father, mother and little girl, who were asphyxiated, and were apparently dead. The pulmotor pumped pure oxygen into their lungs until they began to breathe naturally again."
When the pulmotor is unpacked from its little wooden box, about the size of a suitcase, it looks like a confusion of rubber tubes and bags. The oxygen is contained in the tank under high pressure, and this pressure also furnishes the power to keep up the artificial breathing.
THE PULMOTOR
A—Oxygen tank. B—Reducing valve. C—Inspirator. D-E—Inlet and outlet of controlling valve. F—Operating bellows. G—Dashpot bellows. H—Face cap.
The oxygen flows from the tank through a reducing valve, which cuts down the pressure, and into a controlling valve whence it flows by a rubber tube to the face cap which fits tightly over the patient's nose and mouth. The patient's tongue is kept from sliding back into his throat by a pair of forceps placed for the purpose.
Thus, the oxygen is forced into the lungs by the pressure, but when it reaches a certain degree, about what it would be in normal breathing, a bellows connected with the controlling valve is pressed, and the pressure is turned to suction so that the oxygen that has been forced into the lungs is brought out, through the outlet, causing the poisonous gases to be expelled from the lungs. After the exhalation is complete the controlling valve works again and another blast of pure oxygen is sent into the lungs, only to be withdrawn at the proper moment. This is kept up until the patient's breathing is normal.
We will leave the scientist and his young friend here, for already we have spent more time in following their journeys and talks than we set out to do. We have not touched upon every invention of the last ten years or so, nor every important development, by a long ways, but we have gone far enough to get a pretty fair idea as to the trend of modern thought in inventive research.
This is the epoch of electricity, and of the utilization of all the great forces of Nature that have been right here to our hands since the world began, but which it has taken all these thousands of years to discover and analyze. More and more man is coming to see that Nature's own forces will carry on the big works of the world, if they are properly led through an understanding of their laws. We have aviation because man learned how to utilize the fact that air gives support; we have wireless telegraphy, and we will have the wireless transmission of power, because man learned that Nature has her own perfect system of carrying electrical currents when they are properly delivered to her, without any cumbersome system of wires; we have the Tesla turbine because its inventor found out that Nature gave steam, gas, water, and even air, certain properties that are intangible, and yet stronger far than mere brute force; and so it goes:
Ever a greater familiarity with Nature leads to greater progress, and a happier, more interesting world.
THE END