IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ENABLING PERSONS TO BREATHE PURE AIR IN PLACES FILLED WITH SMOKE OR OTIIER DELETERIOUS FUMES, OR VAPOURS, OR GASES, AND TO COMMUNICATE WITH AND RECEIVE COMMUNICATIONS FROM OTHER PERSONS AT A DISTANCE FROM SUCH PLACES
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas McCulloch and Dugald
Morrison at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 29th March
1880.
TпомAS MCCULLOCH, of Devonport, in the County of Devon, a Shipwright in
Her Majesty's Dockyard, and DUGALD MORRISON, of Stonchouse, in the same
County, Iron Merchant. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ENABLING PERSONS
TO BREATHE PURE AIR IN PLACES FILLED WITH SMOKE OR OTIIER DELETERIOUS
FUMES, OR VAPOURS, OR GASES, AND TO COMMUNICATE WITH AND RECEIVE
COMMUNICATIONS FROM OTHER PERSONS AT A DISTANCE FROM SUCH PLACES."
The object of our Invention is to enable a person to breathe pure air freely while
in a building or other place filled with smoke or other deleterious fumes, vapours, or
gases, and to hold verbal communication with and to receive verbal communications
from a person or persons outside of or at a distance from such building or place.
According to our Invention we form a helmet or case of tin or other suitable
material or materials, and of sufficient size to pass freely over the lead and to allow
of free motion of the head within it, the lower part of the said helmet or case, when
in use, resting on the shoulders, and being secured in place by straps secured to it
and passing under the arms of the wearer. The said helmet is padded at the lower
part in order to exclude smoke when in use, or, if preferred, a pad separate from
the belmet may be used; and the said helmet is provided with glazed sight holes
and an aperture for the escape of expired air, which aperture wo prefer to cover
with wire gauze or other suitable perforated or reticulated material. To the said
helmet, and on the inner side thereof, we connect a flexible tube provided at its free
end with a mouth piece so formed as to admit of its being easily held between the
lips of the person using the helmet. The connection between the said tube and the
helmet is made by means of a metal nozzle which passes through the said helmet
and projects from the outside thereof, to the projecting end of which nozzlo we
connect one end of a long flexible tube, the other end of which is provided with a
trumpet shaped mouthpiece. We prefer to attach or suspend the said long tube
near the end connected with the helmet to a hook thereon, so that any strain to
which the said tube may be subjected when in use is borne by the said hook

page_text: By the use of this apparatus a person is enabled to breathe pure air when in a
building or other place filled with smoke or other deleterious fumes, vapours, or
gases, without the use of an air pump or other apparatus for forcing air, air passing
to him from the outside of the building or place through the aforesaid tubes, and
the expired air escaping by the aperture in the helmet. The wearer is also enabled
to communicate verbally with a person or persons outside the said building or
place, and to receive verbal communications from him or them through the flexible
tubes.