The History of Respirators

A respirator is equipment worn to protect the wearer from inhaling harmful agents such as dust or chemicals. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 to 1519) is said to have originated the respirator concept when he suggested that a finely woven cloth be dipped in water to protect sailors from a toxic powder weapon he had created. Today, there are two types of respirators: the air-purifying respirator and the air-supplying respirator.

Lung Protector

• Lewis P. Haslett got the first United States patent in 1849 for the air-purifying respirator. Called "Haslett's Lung Protector," the wearer had access to filtered air due to the two one-way clapper valves. One valve allowed inhalation of air through a filter made of moistened wool or other porous material and the other released exhaled air into the atmosphere.

Stenhouse Gas Mask

• Scottish chemist John Stenhouse (1809 to 1880) invented a respirator in 1854 that was the first one to remove toxic gases from inhaled air. He did this by composing the mask's filter with powdered charcoal, which he believed could capture large volumes of gas. Stenhouse's invention can be considered the earliest precursor to the gas mask, a device usually associated as part of military equipment.

Other Air-Purifying Respirators

• For the rest of the 1800s, other inventors added to the work of Haslett and Stenhouse. In 1871, John Tyndall came up with a fireman's respirator. Samuel Barton made a more elaborate device around 1874--using rubber, metal and glass for the construction of his respirator and combining different layers of filtering elements. George Neally designed a "smoke-excluding mask" in 1877. Bernhard Loeb and Louis Muntz invented respirators that were connected to a metal filter in 1891 and 1902, respectively.

Pneumatic Life Preserver

• Benjamin Lane is credited with inventing the air-supplying respirator in 1850. His respirator, rather than filtering the air entering it, carried a supply of compressed fresh air.

Fleuss and Draeger Apparatus

• Henry Fleuss of England's Siebe Gorman & Co., Ltd. and Germany's Dräeger company designed respirators consisting of face-covering rubber masks connected to breathing bags containing oxygen. The design predated the gas masks used in World War I (1914 to 1918).

Vajen-Bader Smoke Protector

• The Vajen-Bader Company in Indianapolis, Indiana, produced its smoke respirator for firemen in the 1890s and early 1900s. It completely concealed the wearer's head, with oxygen supplied from a compressed air cylinder located at the back of the helmet.