On an improved apparatus for spray inhalations / [James Adams].

  • Adams, James Maxwell, 1818-1899.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On an improved apparatus for spray inhalations / [James Adams]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    The use of medicated vapours, or of simple steam vapour in the treatment of diseases has been practised from the earliest times. Ihe dispersion of liquid medicines, in the form of a fine mist or spray, to which the term pulverizing, or atomizinrr IS generally applied, is also an old practice. On a large scale and by _ means of aiTangements restricted to establishments located in certain watering places on the Continent, it has been many years in use. ^ In 1858, a medical man named Sales Girons, of Pierrefond m France, constructed a portable apparatus for the pulver- ization of fluids containing dissolved medicaments, whether volatile or non-volatile, for the purpose of inhalation in the treatment of disease. After that date, numerous medical men throughout Europe contributed their ideas and aided the construction of various contrivances for the more effective carrying out of the principle of pulverizing fluids. It is admittedly a valuable principle in the treatment of disease, and every approach to efiiciency and economy in its application has been welcomed by the medical profession. The apparatus of Sales Girons consisted of a force-pump projecting a ver}^ fine jet of fluid. The stream at the moment of exit struck upon a metal disc, and was scattered and broken up into a fine mist or spray. Numerous modifications of the instrument were quickly in use, but all essentially acted on the same principle —viz., the striking of a stream of fluid against an obstacle. In 1859, M. Mathieu, of Paris, contributed a new idea for the mechanism. He exhibited an instrument in which the medicated fluid escaped slowly, drop by drop, into a tube through which passed a blast of compressed air. The fluid was thus projected forcibly through the fine open end of the tube in the form of a very fine, but very cold spray. In 1862 a more important change was effected by Dr. Berg- son, of Germany, who, in accordance with a suggestion of Dr. Natanson, constructed an instrument which he called Hydrokomion, or Water Dust Apparatus. He made use of the motive principle exemplified in Giffard's Steam Injector, as used in feeding engine boilers. In that contrivance a forcible jet of steam is led into a pipe, one end of which dips into a reservoir of water and the other end dips into the boiler. The steam jet produces a suction which exhausts the air in the pipe, and the water in the reservoir is then by atmos- pheric pressure forced up into the pipe so exhausted of air, and is caught by the rush of steam and projected into the boiler. Dr. Bergson followed out this principle. He employed two glass tubes, the capillary openings of each meeting, and