Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-23
Physicians Expect Startling
Results From New
Invention.
HAS SAVED MANY DIVERS
Patient Is Put Inside Tube,
Then Pressure Is
Increased.
BY A. w. GILLIAN,

BY A. w. GILLIAN.
Down at the Navy Yard there's
Patton steel cylinder they've dubbed
1.-THE iron doctor" because of its appar-
ent ability to cure wide variety OF
| ailments.
! Doctors see in this mammoth ma
chine which feeds it's patients only air,
and plenty of it, the door to field OF
practice in respiratory and circulatory
illnesses that is almost unbounded.
| With it. they say, they can force
through the body at great pressures,
quantities of disease-purrglng,. germ
/ killing oxygen without harming the
| living. healthy tissues. and from re-
| search work already under way they
expect results startling to the medical
world.
Cure for "The Bends"
"The iron doctor" is the apparatus
used by the Navy Yard in decompres-
| sion of men who have been making
diving tests. When a diver is seized
with the affection, the bends" or COM
pressed air illness, he is rushed into
| 1.-The iron doctor" His body is filled
with air up to the pressure at which
"the bends" was contracted, then the
blood is allowed slowly to pass of the
air bubbles in the tissues. They walk
out of "the iron doctor cured.
been carried feet-first from the medical
lock of 1.-THE iron doctor" and in at
| least one instance, so badly had the
patient been injured his heart had
stopped for minute and half. That
uatient was put into 1.-The iron doctor"
Unconscious and dying A little over
! two hours later he walked, unaSslsted,
out of the chamber and into waiting
| ambulance. Regular medical treatment
completed his recovery.
| Another man attributes the return OF
sight in an injured eye to the curative
properties of "the iron doctors"
medicine.
It is in other fields than decompres-
sion to guard against 'the bends that
doctors are interested in the study and
DEVELOPMENT of 1.-The iron doctors" use.
Recognizing the possibilities of med1-
cal treatments with recompreSSlon
chambers in other ailments than the
bends" DR.. Cecil K. Drinker, research
physician at Harvard, has gone into the
study of the apparatus on large scale.
The Navy has furnished him With all
its available data on "the iron doctor. "
In charge of the work with the Navy
Yards decomposition chamber Is Cnle1
Gunner c. L. Tibbals, a warrant officer
regarded by the Navy as the worlds
foremost authority on the care and
cure of compressed air illness. He also
is accredited with knowing more about
the operation of decomposition cham
bers than any other man in the Navy.
Used for Tests.
He has been using the chamber in
tests of the use of helium instead OF
nitrogen as the neutraliZing agent for
oxygen for diving operations and de-
compression of divers. The combina-
ton of helium and oxygen has been
found to diffuse from the body about
twice as quickly as ordinary AFRO -
cent oxygen and 80 per cent nitrogen.
His discoveries that "the iron doctor"
is effective in the treatment of other
diseases than "the bends have been
purely incidental to his work.
Men working about the Navy Yard
suffering with rheumatism or neuritiS,
were allowed to go under pressure"
and found relief or complete disappear
ance, for the time being, at least, of
their ailment.
Mr.. TibbalS does not believe it is en-
tirely coincidence that no one can re-
call an instance of Navy diver con-
tracing tuberculosis, or that out of the
more than 200 persons engaging in the
rescue operations on the scene Of the
S-4 sinking, practically all except the
divers contracted bad colds. There was
not a single case of cold among the 25
or 80 divers engaging in the rescue
work, although they were exposed to
| low temperatures under conditions that
were highly conducive to their con-
tracing colds.
| Lieut.. Comdr. Gilbert H. Mankin, a
| physician attached to the Naval Bureau
of Medicine and Surgery here, and
medical officer in attendance at the
operations for rescue of the men en-
trapped in the hulk of the sunken S-4
off Provinceton, r. l., last Winter,
and in Mr.. Tibbafs' work. The result of
some of Mr.. Tibbals' experiments DR..
Mankin admits, are hard to reconcile
| with established medical practice and
I theory. Others, he finds, point the way
to the use of compressed air and oxy-
gen under pressure in a wide field OF
treatment of respiratory and circulatory
ailments of the human system. DR..
Mankin, who has made study OF the
effects of compression upon the body,
explains that the absence of parallel
|
the iron doctor" leaves much to be
conjectured about But the ability of
doctors to drive through the body at
varying preSsureS, quantities of oxygen
with the use of the compressed air
chamber forms basis for the eXpecta-
ton of great things in the future. he
believes.
He pointed out that the Journal of the
American Medical Association recently
exposed as quackery certain claims OF
physicians in the West that they could
cure cancer and diabetes with the use
Of oxygen under compression.
Given Various Pressures.
I'VE have not gone nearly that far
with the tests that must be made With
compressed air chambers before we can
formulate any laws of procedure he
said.
In the vitals of the iron doctor" a
patient is fed varying preSsureS OF air.
This air, taken into the lungs is IN
turn taken up and shot through the
entire body by the blood the oxygen
acting as a stimulating and health-giv-
ing agent upon the living tissue and as
I death-dealing agent to alien germs.
Complete Saturation of the body with
air and oxygen has been effected hum
dredS of times in 1.-The iron doctor" at
the Navy Yard in the treatment OF
divers, and the air is under complete
control at all times from within and
without the chamber. In its circulatory
system the blood. diffused with the
compressed gases within the chamber
shoots into every recess of the body.
even into the bones.
The introduction of other gases than
oxygen that might be found active
against disease is a perfectly feasible
idea although it has not been tried, Dr.
Mankin said
In what manner the lung gases diffuse
under pressure, with the blood is moot
question. That the gases take some
liquid form is the accepted theory. for
it is when bubbles form after they have
been under pressure in their diving