Aqualung (Inventions) In Depth Tutorials and Information Aqualung (Inventions) The invention: A device that allows divers to descend hundreds of meters below the surface of the ocean by enabling them to carry the oxygen they breathe with them. The people behind the invention: Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1997), a French navy officer, undersea explorer, inventor, and author Emile Gagnan, a French engineer who invented an automatic air-regulating device The Limitations of Early Diving Undersea dives have been made since ancient times for the purposes of spying, recovering lost treasures from wrecks, and obtaining natural treasures (such as pearls). Many attempts have been made since then to prolong the amount of time divers could remain underwater. The first device, described by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in 335 b.c.e., was probably the ancestor of the modern snorkel. It was a bent reed placed in the mouth, with one end above the water. In addition to depth limitations set by the length of the reed, pressure considerations also presented a problem. The pressure on a diver’s body increases by about one-half pound per square centimeter for every meter ventured below the surface.

After descending about 0.9 meter, inhaling surface air through a snorkel becomes difficult because the human chest muscles are no longer strong enough to inflate the chest. In order to breathe at or below this depth, a diver must breathe air that has been pressurized; moreover, that pressure must be able to vary as the diver descends or ascends. Few changes were possible in the technology of diving until air compressors were invented during the early nineteenth century. Fresh, pressurized air could then be supplied to divers. At first, the divers who used this method had to wear diving suits, complete with fishbowl-like helmets. This “tethered” diving made divers relatively immobile but allowed them to search for sunken treasure or do other complex jobs at great depths. The Development of Scuba Diving The invention of scuba gear gave divers more freedom to move about and made them less dependent on heavy equipment. (“Scuba” stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.) Its development occurred in several stages. In 1880, Henry Fleuss of England developed an outfit that used a belt containing pure oxygen. Belt and diver were connected, and the diver breathed the oxygen over and over.

A version of this system was used by the U.S. Navy in World War II spying efforts. Nevertheless, it had serious drawbacks: Pure oxygen was toxic to divers at depths greater than 9 meters, and divers could carry only enough oxygen for relatively short dives. It did have an advantage for spies, namely, that the oxygen—breathed over and over in a closed system—did not reach the surface in the form of telltale bubbles. The next stage of scuba development occurred with the design of metal tanks that were able to hold highly compressed air. This enabled divers to use air rather than the potentially toxic pure oxygen. More important, being hooked up to a greater supply of air meant that divers could stay under water longer. Initially, the main problem with the system was that the air flowed continuously through a mask that covered the diver’s entire face. This process wasted air, and the scuba divers expelled a continual stream of air bubbles that made spying difficult.

The solution, according to Axel Madsen’s Cousteau (1986), was “a valve that would allow inhaling and exhaling through the same mouthpiece.” Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s father was an executive for Air Liquide— France’s main producer of industrial gases. He was able to direct Cousteau to Emile Gagnan, an engineer at thecompany’s Paris laboratory who had been developing an automatic gas shutoff valve for Air Liquide. This valve became the Cousteau-Gagnan regulator, a breathing device that fed air to the diver at just the right pressure whenever he or she inhaled. With this valve—and funding from Air Liquide—Cousteau and Gagnan set out to design what would become the Aqualung. The first Aqualungs could be used at depths of up to 68.5 meters. During testing, however, the dangers of Aqualung diving became apparent. For example, unless divers ascended and descended in slow stages, JACQUES-YVES COUSTEAU The son of a businessman who liked to travel, Jacques-Yves Cousteau acquired the same wanderlust.

Born in 1910 in Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac, France, he was a sickly child, but he learned to love swimming and the ocean. He also took an interest in movies, producing his first film when he was thirteen. Cousteau graduated from France’s naval academy, but his career as an officer ended with a nearly fatal car accident in 1936. He went to Toulon, where he returned to his interests in the sea and photography, a period that culminated in his invention of the aqualung with Emile Gagnan in 1944. During World War II he also won a Legion d’honneur for his photographic espionage. The French Navy established the Underwater Research Group for Cousteau in 1944, and after the war the venture evolved into the freewheeling, worldwide voyages that Cousteau became famous for. Aboard the Calypso, a converted U.S. minesweeper, he and his crew conducted research and pioneered underwater photography. His 1957 documentary The Silent World (based on a 1953 topic) won an Oscar and the Palm d’Or of the Cannes film festival.

Subsequent movies and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, a television series, established Cousteau as a leading environmentalist and science educator. His Cousteau Society, dedicated to exploring and protecting the oceans, attracted millions of members worldwide. Through it he launched another innovative technology, “Turbosails,” towering non-rotating cylinders that act as sails to reduce ships’ dependency on oil-fueled engines. Anew ship propelled by them, the Alcyone, eventually replaced the Calypso. Cousteau inspired legions of oceanographers and environmentalists while calling attention to pressing problems in the world’s oceans. Although his later years where marked by family tragedies and controversy, he was revered throughout the world and had received many honors when he died in 1997. it was likely that they would get “the bends” (decompression sickness), the feared disease of earlier, tethered deep-sea divers. Another problem was that, below 42.6 meters, divers encountered nitrogen narcosis.

(This can lead to impaired judgment that may cause fatal actions, including removing a mouthpiece or developing an overpowering desire to continue diving downward, to dangerous depths.) Cousteau believed that the Aqualung had tremendous military potential. During World War II, he traveled to London soon after the Normandy invasion, hoping to persuade the Allied Powers of its usefulness. He was not successful. So Cousteau returned to Paris and convinced France’s new government to use Aqualungs to locate and neutralize underwater mines laid along the French coast by the German navy. Cousteau was commissioned to combine mine-sweeping with the study of the physiology of scuba diving. Further research revealed that the use of helium-oxygen mixtures increased to 76 meters the depth to which a scuba diver could go without suffering nitrogen narcosis. Impact One way to describe the effects of the development of the Aqualung is to summarize Cousteau’s continued efforts to the present. In 1946, he and Philippe Tailliez established the Undersea Research Group of Toulon to study diving techniques and various aspects of life in the oceans. They studied marine life in the Red Sea from 1951 to 1952.

From 1952 to 1956, they engaged in an expedition supported by the National Geographic Society. By that time, the Research Group had developed many techniques that enabled them to identify life-forms and conditions at great depths. Throughout their undersea studies, Cousteau and his coworkers continued to develop better techniques for scuba diving, for recording observations by means of still and television photography, and for collecting plant and animal specimens. In addition, Cousteau participated (with Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard) in the construction of the deep-submergence research vehicle, or bathyscaphe. In the 1960′s, he directed a program called Conshelf, which tested a human’s ability to live in a specially built underwater habitat. He also wrote and produced films on underwater exploration that attracted, entertained, and educated millions of people. Cousteau has won numerous medals and scientific distinctions.

These include the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society (1963), the United Nations International Environment Prize (1977), membership in the American and Indian academies of science (1968 and 1978, respectively), and honorary doctor of science degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (1970), Harvard University (1979), and Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute (1979). Who Invented the Scuba Regulator SCUBA the Regulator? By David Holt NAUI #15465 Who really invented scuba? Most divers and Instructors alike would say that Jacques Cousteau invented regulators and Scuba. I was asked this question during a recent Basic Scuba Diver Course. My standard answer has always been Jacques Cousteau, but this time the student asked what year it was that he invented the regulator and Scuba. Well, being Bwana, King of the sea, and ruler of the knights of the square table, I had to find out. Diving was limited to one breath until the 16th century when upside down barrels were used as primitive diving bells, and the first multi-breath dive was made.

This was a tremendous leap forward, and certainly an efficient solution. In 1771, John Smeaton; a British engineer, invented the air pump. This allowed hoses to be connected to the barrels. In 1772, Sieur Freminet, a French scientist, designed a "rebreathing" device that actually recycled the exhaled air inside of the barrel. He, of course, died from lack of oxygen after about 25 minutes. But it sparked an interest in the self-contained air concept. In 1825, William James, an English inventor, designed a self-contained apparatus. It was a cylindrical iron "belt" that held 450 psi of air, which free flowed into a copper helmet. . Wonderful idea, but his self-contained underwater dive only lasted 7 minutes at 11 feet. In 1864 Benoit Rouquayrol, a French Engineer, and August Denayrouze, a French naval officer, developed a surface-supplied system that included an air reservoir and a demand regulator. Unfortunately, the reservoir wasn't high pressure, and held only enough air for one breath.

Humm ï¿½ In 1876 Henry Fleuss, an English sailor, invented a closed-circuit oxygen rebreather. Fleussï¿½ design was used to repair an iron door in a flooded chamber of his ship. His rebreather demonstrated the usefulness of self-contained diving. After completing his task of repairing and saving the ship, he donned his new invention and descended to the bottom and died from the toxic effects of pure oxygen below 30 feet. In 1926 Yves Leprieur, a French naval officer, invented a system using a 2,000-psi steel tank which free-flowed into a full-face mask. In 1937 Georges Comheines, a Frenchman, apparently invented a demand-flow system based on a modified fire fighting apparatus. Sadly he died during the testing of the unit, and his design was soon forgotten. In 1939, in response to the upcoming world war, Dr. Christian Lambertsen, an American professor, developed a self-contained underwater oxygen breathing apparatus . It was the American military that named this the clandestine (or top secret) system SCUBA.

It worked quite well for shallow depths, but at deeper depths, many of the divers died from oxygen toxicity, and the project was dropped. In 1942, Emile Gagnan, a French engineer, and Jacques Cousteau, a French naval officer, developed a simple demand regulator. This regulator was based on research Gagnan had done to convert automobiles from gasoline to cooking oil. Their regulator, when combined with three cylinders, each holding 2,500 psi of air, was dubbed the "Aqua-lung". (And no, he didn't know Jethro Tull!) In 1951 E.R. Cross, and American diver, invented the first single-hose regulator. This design was based on an oxygen system used by aviators, and was quickly copied. Who Invented Scuba Diving Regulator? Home Blogs Who Invented Scuba Diving Regulator? Who Invented Scuba Diving Regulator? Written by Paw on . Posted in Blogs A diving resort in Anilao Batangas Philippines offers scuba diving packages from basic to advance courses. This beach resort and hotel in Batangas also offers affordable hotel accommodation.

Now let’s read this article “Who Invented Scuba Diving Regulator?”. Who really invented scuba? Most divers and Instructors alike would say that Jacques Cousteau invented regulators and Scuba. I was asked this question during a recent Basic Scuba Diver Course. My standard answer has always been Jacques Cousteau, but this time the student asked what year it was that he invented the regulator and Scuba. Well, being Bwana, King of the sea, and ruler of the knights of the square table, I had to find out. Diving was limited to one breath until the 16th century when upside down barrels were used as primitive diving bells, and the first multi-breath dive was made. This was a tremendous leap forward, and certainly an efficient solution. In 1771, John Smeaton; a British engineer, invented the air pump. This allowed hoses to be connected to the barrels. In 1772, Sieur Freminet, a French scientist, designed a “rebreathing” device that actually recycled the exhaled air inside of the barrel. He, of course, died from lack of oxygen after about 25 minutes.

But it sparked an interest in the self-contained air concept. In 1825, William James, an English inventor, designed a self-contained apparatus. It was a cylindrical iron “belt” that held 450 psi of air, which free flowed into a copper helmet. . Wonderful idea, but his self-contained underwater dive only lasted 7 minutes at 11 feet. In 1864 Benoit Rouquayrol, a French Engineer, and August Denayrouze, a French naval officer, developed a surface-supplied system that included an air reservoir and a demand regulator. Unfortunately, the reservoir wasn’t high pressure, and held only enough air for one breath. Humm … In 1876 Henry Fleuss, an English sailor, invented a closed-circuit oxygen rebreather. Fleuss’ design was used to repair an iron door in a flooded chamber of his ship. His rebreather demonstrated the usefulness of self-contained diving. After completing his task of repairing and saving the ship, he donned his new invention and descended to the bottom and died from the toxic effects of pure oxygen below 30 feet.

In 1926 Yves Leprieur, a French naval officer, invented a system using a 2,000-psi steel tank which free-flowed into a full-face mask. In 1937 Georges Comheines, a Frenchman, apparently invented a demand-flow system based on a modified fire fighting apparatus. Sadly he died during the testing of the unit, and his design was soon forgotten. In 1939, in response to the upcoming world war, Dr. Christian Lambertsen, an American professor, developed a self-contained underwater oxygen breathing apparatus . It was the American military that named this the clandestine (or top secret) system SCUBA. It worked quite well for shallow depths, but at deeper depths, many of the divers died from oxygen toxicity, and the project was dropped. In 1942, Emile Gagnan, a French engineer, and Jacques Cousteau, a French naval officer, developed a simple demand regulator. This regulator was based on research Gagnan had done to convert automobiles from gasoline to cooking oil. Their regulator, when combined with three cylinders, each holding 2,500 psi of air, was dubbed the “Aqua-lung”.

(And no, he didn’t know Jethro Tull!) In 1951 E.R. Cross, and American diver, invented the first single-hose regulator. This design was based on an oxygen system used by aviators, and was quickly copied. Credits to aquastrophics Jacques Cousteau - Filmmaker, Military Leader, Scientist, Photographer, Inventor, Explorer - Biography.com Jacques Cousteau Jacques Cousteau was a French undersea explorer, researcher, photographer and documentary host who invented diving and scuba devices, including the Aqua-Lung. He also conducted underwater expeditions and produced films and television series, including the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. IN THESE GROUPS » quotes “However fragmented the world, however intense the national rivalries, it is an inexorable fact that we become more interdependent every day.” “From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.” “The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist.

For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.” “The awareness of our environment came progressively in all countries with different outlets.” Jacques Cousteau Jacques Cousteau - The Aqua Lung (TV-14; 1:09) Watch a short video about Jacques Cousteau dive into the underwater world of this ocean explorer. Synopsis Born on June 11, 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France, Jacques Cousteau co-invented the Aqua-Lung, a breathing device for scuba-diving, in 1943. In 1945, he started the French Navy's undersea research group. In 1951, he began going on yearly trips to explore the ocean on the Calypso. Cousteau recorded his trips on the TV series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. In 1996, the Calypso sunk. Cousteau died on June 25, 1997, in Paris, France.

Early Life Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born in the village of Saint-André-de-Cubzac, in southwestern France, on June 11, 1910. The younger of two sons born to Daniel and Elizabeth Cousteau, he suffered from stomach problems and anemia as a young child. At age 4, Cousteau learned to swim and started a lifelong fascination with water. As he entered adolescence, he showed a strong curiosity for mechanical objects and upon purchasing a movie camera, he took it apart to understand how it operated. Jacques Cousteau's curiosity notwithstanding, he did not do well in school. At 13, He was sent to boarding school in Alsace, France. After he completed his preparatory studies, he attended Collège Stanislas in Paris and in 1930, Cousteau entered the Ecole Navale (French Naval Academy) at Brest, France. After graduation, as a gunnery officer, he joined the French Navy's information service. He took his camera along and shot many rolls of film at exotic ports-o-call in the Indian and South Pacific oceans.

In 1933, Jacques Cousteau was in a major automobile accident that nearly took his life. During his rehabilitation, he took up daily swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. A friend, Philippe Tailliez, gave Cousteau a pair of swimming goggles, which opened him to the mysteries of the sea and began his quest to understand the underwater world. In 1937, Cousteau married Simone Melchior. They had two sons, Jean-Michel and Phillipe. Both sons, in time, would join their father in underwater world expeditions. Simone died in 1990 and one year later, the senior Cousteau married Francine Triplet, with whom he had a daughter and son (born while Cousteau was married to Simone). Famed Explorer During World War II, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Jacques Cousteau and his family took refuge in the small town of Megreve, near the Swiss border. For the first few years of the war, he quietly continued his underwater experiments and explorations. In 1943 he met Emile Gagnan, a French engineer who shared his passion for discovery.

Around this time, compressed air cylinders were invented and Cousteau and Gagnan experimented with snorkel hoses, body suits and breathing apparatus. In time, they developed the first aqua-lung device allowing divers to stay underwater for long periods of time. Cousteau was also instrumental in the development of a waterproof camera that could withstand the high pressure of deep water. During this time, Cousteau made two documentaries on underwater exploration, Par dix-huit mètres de fond ("18 Meters Deep") and Épaves ("Shipwrecks"). During the war, Cousteau joined the French Resistance movement, spying on Italian armed forces and documenting troop movements. Cousteau was recognized for his resistance efforts and awarded several medals, including the Legion of Honor from France. After the war, Cousteau worked with the French navy to clear underwater mines. Between missions, he continued his underwater explorations performing various tests and filming the underwater excursions. In 1948, Cousteau, along with Philippe Tailliez and expert divers and academic scientists, undertook an underwater expedition in the Mediterranean Sea to find the Roman shipwreck Mahdia.

This was the first underwater archaeology operation using self-contained diving apparatus and marked the beginning of underwater archeology. In 1950, Jacques Cousteau leased a one-time British minesweeper and converted it into an oceanographic research vessel he named Calypso. Literature, Cinema, TV and Later Expeditions After struggling for financing to conduct his voyages, Cousteau soon realized he needed to attract media attention to make people aware of what he was doing and why it was so important. In 1953, he published the book The Silent World, which was later made into an award-winning film. This success allowed him to finance another expedition to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean sponsored by the French government and the National Geographic Society. During the rest of the decade, Cousteau conducted several expeditions and brought more attention to mysteries and attractions the underwater world. In 1966, Jacques Cousteau launched his first hour-long television special, “The World of Jacques-Yves Cousteau” on the ABC television network. In 1968, he produced the television series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, which ran for nine seasons.

Millions of people followed Cousteau and his crew traversing the globe presenting intimate exposés of marine life and habitat. It was during this time that Cousteau began to realize how human activity was destroying the oceans. Jacques Cousteau also wrote several books, including The Shark in 1970, Dolphins in 1975, and Jacques Cousteau: The Ocean World in 1985. With his increased celebrity and the support of many, Cousteau founded the Cousteau Society in 1973, in an effort to raise awareness of the ecosystems of the underwater world. The organization quickly grew and soon boasted 300,000 members worldwide. In the 1980s, Cousteau continued to produce television specials, but these had a more environmental message and a plea for stronger protection of oceanic wildlife habitat. In June 1979, tragedy struck when Cousteau's son, Philippe Cousteau, was killed in a plane crash.

According to a 1979 article by The Associated Press, Philippe had been flying the plane during a test flight, and when he attempted to land, the plane clipped a sandbank and crashed into Portugal's Tagus River. On January 8, 1996, Calypso was accidentally rammed by barge and sank in Singapore Harbor. Jacques Cousteau tried to raise money to build a new vessel, but died unexpectedly in Paris on June 25, 1997, at the age of 87. His estate and the foundation fell into dispute among his survivors. Most of the legal disputes were settled by 2000, when his son, Jean-Michel, disassociated himself from the Cousteau Society and formed his own organization the Oceans Futures Society. Related Videos Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us ! Citation Information Jacques-Yves Cousteau | Ocean Futures Society Ocean Futures Society Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910 – 1997) The legendary Captain Cousteau was a pioneering explorer of the seas and of the issues that face us today.

He was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, activist, innovator, inventor, author, scientific collaborator, and member of the French Academy. He co-invented the Aqualung, started a marine conservation movement and created a legacy of passion for the ocean that continues today through his family and the millions of people influenced by his work. Photo: Private Collection 1000+ images about Jacques Cousteau : Inventor SCUBA Gear : Underwater Explorer : Calypso on Pinterest | Jacques cousteau, Births and Underwater Forward Jacques Cousteau - Through his books, documentaries, unending research about the world’s oceans and inhabitants - and his deep belief we should be stewards of the oceans - he did more than anyone else to further our knowledge of this vast liquid portion of our globe. Inventor of the Aqua-Lung in the 1940s, it has evolved into the SCUBA equipment used today by divers worldwide, including me. His son and grandson have followed in his work and continue to educate more generations. See More History of Scuba Diving | Diviac Logbook Dive Centers History of scuba diving The history of scuba diving goes back centuries.

People have been diving underwater throughout the ages, probably for as long as people have been swimming. It may not have been scuba diving per se (defined as diving with compressed air or other gas mixture that is carried by the diver) but it is the beginnings of the quest to be able to dive and to breath underwater. In very early times the methods used, such as hollow reeds and inflated bags of air were largely limiting, both in terms of depth as well as the time this allowed the swimmer to stay underwater. His is an account of the main milestones since the beginning of the 18 th century 18 th century Early attempts to reach autonomy from the surface were made by the Englishman John Lethbridge, who invented and successfully built his own underwater diving machine in 1715. The first diving dress using a compressed air reservoir was successfully designed and built in 1771 by Sieur Fréminet, a Frenchman from Paris. After having done research on surface-supplied diving he conceived an autonomous breathing machine equipped with a reservoir, dragged by and behind the diver.

Fréminet called his invention machine hydrostatergatique and used it successfully for more than ten years in the harbors of Le Havre and Brest. 19 th century The Frenchman Paul Lemaire d'Augerville successfully built and used autonomous diving equipment in 1824, as did the British William H. James in 1825. James' helmet was "thin copper or sole of leather" with a plate window, and the air was supplied from an iron reservoir. A similar system was used in 1831 by the American Charles Condert, who died in 1832 while testing his invention in the East River at only 20 feet / 6 m deep. The oldest known oxygen rebreather was patented on June 17, 1808 by Sieur Touboulic from Brest, mechanic in Napoleon's Imperial Navy, but there is no evidence of any prototype having been manufactured. This early rebreather design worked with an oxygen reservoir, the oxygen being delivered progressively by the diver himself and circulating in a closed circuit through a sponge soaked in limewater.

The oldest practical rebreather relates to the 1849 patent from the Frenchman Pierre Aimable De Saint Simon Sicard. The Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus, invented by Benoît Rouquayrol in 1860 for survival in flooded mines and adapted to diving in 1864 with the help of French Navy officer Auguste Denayrouze, was the first regulator to be mass-produced (from 1865 to 1965). Even though it was independent from the surface for a very short duration, the Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus reached worldwide celebrity after having been mentioned by Jules Verne in his adventure book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; but Jules Verne wildly exaggerated its dive duration without external air supply. The iron reservoir suffered from a lack of autonomy because the technology of that time was not yet able to provide reliable valves and pressure vessels when gases were highly compressed.

That is why the Rouquayrol-Denayrouze reservoir, in the 1860s, was able to contain only 30 atmospheres of internal pressure, which translated into sufficient air to permit dives no longer than 30 minutes to a depth of no more than ten meters. For a longer and more secure autonomy from the surface technology had to wait until the 20th century had brought stronger and reliable compressed air cylinders. 20 th century The first diving equipment that combined a high-pressure cylinder and a breathing device was invented separately by the Japanese Ohgushi in 1918 and the Frenchmen Maurice Fernez and Yves le Prieur in 1926. Both were based on a constant-flow supply of the air. Ohgushi's invention was soon forgotten, but the Fernez-Le Prieur apparatus was mass produced during the 1930s and adopted as a standard by the French Navy. It was also the autonomous breathing device first used by the first scuba diving clubs in history, both in the USA and in France.

During the 1930s French pioneers Philippe Tailliez and Jacques-Yves Cousteau used and widely tested the Le Prieur apparatus before Émile Gagnan and Cousteau worked together on the invention of the modern regulator and first commercially successful scuba sets, coined the Aqua-Lung, in 1943. These first scuba sets were twin hose open-circuit units, in which compressed air carried in back mounted cylinders is inhaled through a demand regulator and then exhaled into the water adjacent to the tank. The single hose two stage scuba regulators of today trace their origins to Australia, where Ted Eldred developed the first example of this type of regulator, known as the Porpoise, in 1952. The single hose regulator separates the cylinder from the demand valve, giving the diver air at the pressure at his mouth, not that at the top of the cylinder. In the 1940s and 1950s all scuba sets came with a plain harness of straps with buckles like on a rucksack. Scuba divers therefore dived without any buoyancy aid and, in an emergency, they had to jettison their weights.

In the 1960s adjustable buoyancy life jackets (ABLJ) for aqualung-type scuba became available. The ABLJ was used for two purposes: one to adjust the buoyancy of the diver to compensate for loss of buoyancy and more importantly as a lifejacket that can be quickly inflated even at depth. The first ABLJ were inflated with a small carbon dioxide cylinder, later with a small air cylinder. It was the invention by French company Scubapro in 1971 of the "direct system" (an extra hose from the first-stage regulator that directly feeds into the lifejacket) that resulted in what is now commonly known as a buoyancy compensator device, or simply “BCD or BC”. The 1950s and 1960s saw the birth of a number of scuba diving training and certification agencies as a result of climbing accident rates for scuba divers. BSAC was formed in 1953, CMAS in 1959, NAUI in 1960 and PADI in 1966.

Divers Alert Network (DAN) was founded at Duke University in 1980 as a non-profit organization to promote safe diving. The first commercially available dive computer, the Orca Edge, was introduced in 1983. Until then, all scuba diving was one based on manual dive tables. Today, dive computers are becoming common equipment among recreational divers. Today Scuba diving experienced tremendous growth until the turn of the century with the number of new divers progressively stabilizing since then. In 2012, an estimated 1 million new divers were certified. Scuba diving remains a young and dynamic sport as witnessed by the continued evolution of dive equipment and dive practices. In recent years, the use of dive computers has become standard and many certification agencies now incorporate this piece of equipment into their training curriculum. One of the most significant innovations of the past years is the wireless integration of air consumption into the algorithms of dive computers. By incorporating this additional factor into the calculation of remaining bottom-time, diving is becoming even safer.

Follow Diviac on: Facebook Twitter Google+ © 2017 Scuba Ed's - History of scuba diving History Of Scuba Diving The Origin Of Scuba Diving I have been enjoying the sport of SCUBA diving for many years now both recreationally and professionally. SCUBA diving is possible today because of the extensive research, study and sometimes the lives of many others. I look at this much the same way as the Chinese proverb “How can one know where he is going, unless he knows where he has been?” In my paper I am going to look at the origins of scuba diving by first exploring how and when equipment was developed to breath underwater. Next I will research the first self contained underwater breathing apparatus, also known as scuba. Lastly I will cover an illness known as decompression sickens or DCS and how we learned to avoid it. The first diving invention was built in 1771 by a man named Doctor Freminet. This system was designed as a rebreathing system. The diver wore a suit that was connected to a container by two hoses. According to an article “Serious Diving History”, “Freminet called his invention Machine Hydrostatergatique.

A number of dives were made and no fatal accidents occurred. Freminet stated that exhaled air was "regenerated" because the air ran through water-cooled pipes from and to the helmet. The container featured a ventilator that worked on a spring. Freminet said this influenced the regenerating process in a positive matter. On every dive he could stay below for several minutes” ( Interestingly, there is not another recorded instance of anyone using a device such as this again until the 1800's. In 1820, a fire started on a farm in England. No Matter how hard the fire fighters worked at putting out this fire, it could not be extinguished. The farmer was worried that his valuable horses would be lost in the fire; however, there was a man in the crowd who went and got a medieval helmet from a neighbor. He had the fire department pump air instead of water down the hose. Holding this hose under the helmet, he was able to go into the smoke-filled barn and rescue all the horses. This man’s name was John Deane (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving” ). John and his brother Charles got together and patented this “Smoke Helmet” for fire fighting.

This was a great idea and they started manufacturing them, but John new that this idea could be used for diving underwater too. In the a article “A Brief History of Diving” we read ”By 1828 the original fire-fighting apparatus evolved into “Deane’s Patent Diving Dress.” He modified the fire helmet design by adding larger viewing ports and countered the effects of buoyancy with weighted shoes. A heavy fabric suit was worn to protect the diver from the elements, but the helmet did not attach to the suit. It merely rested on the diver’s shoulders and was secured to his waist by straps” (Alex Brylske, ). This design is what the dive systems where based off of for the next 150 years. However this design was not ideal because the helmet was not connected to the suit. If the diver leaned over or tripped and fell, the helmet would fill with water and the diver would drown. But still the suit worked very well and these brothers became well known salvage operators (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving” ). During the same year of Deane's invention, a man named Charles Condert built what can be called the first SCUBA system.

Self-contained means to have NO connection or support from the surface. It was based on a design he saw in a magazine similar to today’s “popular mechanics”. This article reviewed the patent of a man named William James who created a design in 1825 from two versions of autonomous underwater gear (“Serious Diving History” To build Charles’s scuba unit, he formed a copper pipe into a semi circle creating the first scuba tank that he wore around his mid back. From this was a hose that went under a rubber hip length suite. He made a dive to twenty feet in the east river in New York where after a few dives he died. The cause of death most likely was that he fell over and the suit flooded drowning him and thus making him the first recorded scuba death (“Serious Diving History” Over the years many changes or improvements where made to dean's Diving Dress. The most notable is a German instrumen maker Augustus Siebs improvements described in an article “A Brief History of Diving.” “Siebe only refined the Deanes’ design by inventing an efficient way of sealing the helmet to the suit and improving the exhaust system.

By 1840, the “Siebe Improved Diving Dress” was introduced, and Siebe went on to found Siebe Forman and Company, one of the most famous diving companies in the world. It was Siebe’s system that became the true predecessor to the famous deep-sea diving dress familiar today to everyone” (Alex Brylske, ). Some of the next advances were found during a salvage dive on the HMS Royal George which sank in 1783. It was not salvaged until 1839. Salvage operations were not finish until 1842. The operation was led by an Engineer named William Charles Pasley. During this salvage operation they tried many different diving systems. They found Siebe’s to be the best. With this recommendation, it became the most popular diving system of its time. Explosives where first introduced to salvage operations during the salvage of the Royal George in which lead encased barrels filled with gun powder where used (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving” ). Today in recreational SCUBA training, you are taught to always dive in pairs. This is called the “buddy system”.

The reason we are trained to do this is if one diver has an emergency, he is not alone. With another diver present, the buddy may be able to help the distressed diver out of the emergency. The Royal George salvage operation is the first recorded instance of this buddy system being used. Pasley had his divers work in pairs in order to help each other through the wreckage (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving” ). Today in really cold water, some divers wear a different kind of exposure suite called a dry suit. This suit keeps a layer of air between the diver and the suit. The benefit is that air conducts heat and cold slower then water does. The diver wares sweats or thermals under the suit and pumps air in it through a hose connected to the tank. If air isn't added to the suit, the water pressure squeezes the diver causing discomfort and pain. During the Royal George salvage, this “squeeze” occoured for the first time. The incident is discribed in the article “A Brief History of Diving” “Early diving helmets did not have nonreturn valves. This meant that if a hose was severed, the high-pressure air surrounding the diver rapidly and with incredible force evacuated the helmet.

At even a modest depth, the tremendous negative pressure created by the escaping air caused an extreme and often life-threatening squeeze on the diver. This is exactly what happened to Private John Williams. Fortunately, however, even though “his face and neck were swollen and livid, his eyeball capillaries ruptured and blood was flowing from his ears and mouth,” Williams survived, but he never returned to diving (Alex Brylske, ). The next great advancement in the scuba system was a Refinement of Condert’s design. In 1863 T. Cato McKeen switched the tank to mount on the back and made a rubber suit. There was a second air cylinder that was used to inflate the suit to bring the diver to the surface. This could be considered the first buoyancy compensator device also known as a BC or BCD. A BCD is a blader that divers wear today that they add air to which makes them neutrally buoyant; meaning they neither sink or float. This makes them weightless, this is the only way to be like an astronaut without leaving earth (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving” )!

We have talked about how the Americans built the first SCUBA system, but the most famous is the one made by a French naval officer, Auguste Denayrouze, in 1865. It was a surface supplied air diving system. A good description of how it worked is found in an article, “Scuba Diving - The Early History of Diving” “It consists of a horizontal steel tank of compressed air (about 250-350 psi) on a diver's back, connected through a valve arrangement to a mouthpiece. Patented as the "Aerophore," the device delivers air only when the diver inhales, via a membrane that is sensitive to outside water pressure: in effect, the first demand regulator for underwater use. With this apparatus the diver is tethered to the surface by a hose that pumps fresh air into the low pressure tank, but he is able to disconnect the tether and dive with just the tank on his back for a few minutes. The Aerophore is a forerunner of modern scuba equipment.

The apparatus was used by the French and other navies for several years, and also appears prominently in Jules Verne's 1870 novel, '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.'” Although it was used mostly as a surface supply system, it could be used as a “SCUBA” unit independently of an external surface air supply, but for a very short time ( So fare we have gone from surface supplied air systems to SCUBA systems, but according to Alex Brylske in his article “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” “Self-contained systems were extremely inefficient and required large air reservoirs. So by the 1870s, interest shifted to developing an oxygen system that could scrub and recirculate the breathing gas, a system that we today call a rebreather.” So, we are quickly switching directions to another type of diving system (Alex Brylke, ). In 1878 an Englishman, Henry Fleuss, built a rebreather made of a rubberized fabric hood, a breathing bag and a copper cylinder full of oxygen compressed to 30 atmospheres (440 psi).

The tank and carbon dioxide scrubber was worn on the divers back. What this system does is remove the carbon dioxide from the exhaled air and the diver “rebreaths” this air. As he depletes the oxygen, the device adds more. Therefore the diver can stay down longer with a smaller tank. During some of the long dives with this system, a diver named Alexander Lambert almost died at 60 feet because they did not know pure oxygen was toxic below a depth of 20 feet. A system like this was used in filming J.E. Williamson’s 1915 version of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” ). In 1900, the inventor and early underwater photographer Louis Bouton went back to the air based design. One of the most remarkable things he created was a high-pressure tank capable of holding 3,000 psi of air. That is the same pressure our tanks hold today (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” ).

An inventor in 1918 named Ohgushi created an odd but successful system called the “Ohgushi Peerless Respirator,” it was much like the systems that came before him but his major contribution was using a more modern mask design, similar to the one used by early scuba divers. The main flaw of his system is how difficult it was to breath with it. A diver had to bite down on a valve with his teeth and breath trough his nose. To exhale you then had to breath out of your mouth. But still the Japanese Navy used this device in salvage operations at depths to 200 feet or more (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” ). Another compressed air tank scuba system was invented by Le Prieur. In 1933, he built a device with the help of Maurice Frenez. Maurice Frenez also had created a breathing system that Le Prieur saw in 1925 during a demonstration of a underwater cutting torch. The system that these men built had a tank that had a hose that went to the divers mask.

The diver regulated the flow of this with a valve on the tank. The bad thing about this system was how much air it wasted. It was a constant flow system so when the diver exhaled it also let out unused air (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” ). Now we have looked into breathing systems a lot. What about fins? In 1933 a French inventor named De Corlieu, came up with an idea for them and by 1935 fins were available commercially for the first time. However fins were brought to America by Owen Churchill. His fins where used by the frogmen of World War II and early sport divers. You can still see a trace of the Churchill design in use today. They are stubby, odd-shaped fins and are extremely popular among boogie boarders and body surfers (Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” ). The dive mask also came into the Scene in the 1930s. The modern diving mask evolved from goggles.

A Russian, Alec Kramarenko, improve on their primitive design while living in Japan. He Created a single glass lens with a rubber skirt which was held together by a wooden frame. The problem with this design was that it did not include the nose in the mask. So as the diver descended the air in the mask would compress from the pressure and cause an uncomfortable suction in the mask. Alec tried to resolve this by adding rubber bulbs to the ends of the mask which added air to the mask on decent as they where squeezed. The creation of the basic mask design we us today as well as the snorkel was created by a French man named Maxime Forjot. Other similar version of the mask was made by Jack Prodonovich at about the same time(Alex Brylske, “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” ). The next great advancement in diving equipment by Commeinhes in the article “A Brief History of Diving, part 2: Evolution of the Self-Contained Diver” “Commeinhes’ family owned a company that manufactured valves for the mining industry.

By using his mechanical knowledge and his family’s ample resources, Commeinhes improved on le Prieur’s design. He retained the full-face mask concept, but placed the compressed air tank on the diver’s back. But more significantly, Commeinhes’ device abandoned the free-flow design of le Prieur, replacing it with a demand valve mounted between the diver’s shoulders.” This design was approved and used by the French navy and used to depths of 150 feet. Unfortunately Commeinhes was later killed in war (Alex Brylske, ). Finally we have come to the greatest contributor to the SCUBA diving system we used today. He was a French naval officer by the name of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Cousteau was in a near fatal auto accident in 1942 and for rehabilitation, he took up underwater film making (Alex Brylske, “How Did We Get Here? A Short History of Diver Training” ). We learn more about the development of this design in an article “How Did We Get Here?

A Short History of Diver Training” “Being a naval officer, Cousteau was already familiar with a self-contained diving apparatus developed a decade earlier by another Frenchman named Le Prieur. So, Cousteau went to Paris in the fall of 1942 to meet with Emile Gagnan. A talented engineer whose specialty was valves, Gagnan agreed to help Cousteau. He proposed a valve based on a design he had invented that would convert automobiles from gasoline to natural gas” (Alex Brylske, ). “Their original design was only marginally successful, and Cousteau almost drowned during a test dive. But after significant retooling, the device was pronounced a success in the summer of 1943. With a simple, safe and reliable breathing apparatus, the stage was set for the creation of the new sport of scuba diving.” Cousteau called this system the aqualung and it was brought to America in 1948 (Alex Brylske, “How Did We Get Here? A Short History of Diver Training” ). SCUBA diving is not just safe because we have a safe and reliable breathing system.

In 1869 during the building of the Brookly Bridge, caissons were invented to facilitate the digging of the foundations in the river bottom. Caissons were chambers filled with compressed air to keep out water. The problems discovered are described in an article “HOW WE GOTWHERE WE ARE: THE ORIGINS OF DCS THEORY” “Workers were subjected to a pressure of 80 psi (equivalent to almost 147 feet of sea water), a record for the time. But the higher pressures had tragic consequences. There were 35 cases of serious neurological decompression sickness, including six fatalities.” From this we learn that people who spent time under water would could come up feeling a lot of pain. This pain would cause them to curl up in the fetal position which is why people started calling this illness the “The bends” (Alex Brylske, ). Scientists and doctors researched these victims of the bends and found that they had bubbles in there joints. In 1872 Paul Bert discovered the bubbles in joints where nitrogen. After his research he recommended a possible cure to those affected by the bends. The first thing he said was to always slowly decompress the chamber and not let the pressure off all at once.

This allowed the body to burn off the extra nitrogen instead of it turning into bubbles in the body. He said you would treat the bends by repressurizing the chamber and slowly releasing it. This is known as decompression (Alex Brylske, “HOW WE GOTWHERE WE ARE: THE ORIGINS OF DCS THEORY” ). Caissons despise or the bends is known today as decompression sickens or DCS. The greatest advancements in DCS theory was made by john Scott Haldane who started in 1905 forming what we call dcs tables. These table tell a diver how long he can stay at any depth before he risks getting DCS. To research this he created a chamber that he could compress to different pressures. This simulated a diver at depth. For his test subjects he used goats after finding they reacted a lot like people in this environment. In 1908 he released an article called “the prevention of compressed air illness” it also included a set of dive tables (Alex Brylske, “HOW WE GOTWHERE WE ARE: THE ORIGINS OF DCS THEORY” ).

I have been enjoying the sport of SCUBA diving for many years now because of people like Cousteau, who invented the Aqua Lung. Also, if it was not for Haldane, it would be almost medically impossible to SCUBA dive and avoid DCS. Going back to the Chinese proverb “How can one know where he is going, unless he knows where he has been?” We now know where we have been and because of these men’s efforts, further advancements are continually being developed like dive computers. These instruments put Halanes table into a computer that makes dive calculations on the fly. Today’s SCUBA divers owe a lot to these men and the least we can do is remember them. Jacques Cousteau | French ocean explorer and engineer | Britannica.com French ocean explorer and engineer Written By: French ocean explorer and engineer Also known as Jacques Cousteau, in full Jacques-Yves Cousteau (born June 11, 1910, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France —died June 25, 1997, Paris ), French naval officer, ocean explorer, and coinventor of the Aqua-Lung, known for his extensive underseas investigations.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Stock Connection/Superstock After graduating from France’s naval academy in 1933, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. However, his plans to become a navy pilot were undermined by an almost fatal automobile accident in which both his arms were broken. Cousteau, not formally trained as a scientist, was drawn to undersea exploration by his love both of the ocean and of underwater diving . In 1943 Cousteau and French engineer Émile Gagnan developed the first fully automatic compressed-air Aqua-Lung (scuba apparatus), which allowed divers to swim freely underwater for extended periods of time. Cousteau helped to invent many other tools useful to oceanographers , including the diving saucer (an easily maneuverable small submarine for seafloor exploration), in 1959, and a number of underwater cameras. Cousteau served in World War II as a gunnery officer in France and later was a member of the French Resistance against the German occupation of the country. He subsequently was awarded the Legion of Honour for his espionage work. Cousteau’s experiments with underwater filmmaking began during the war.

He also was involved in conducting oceanographic research at a centre in Marseille with French naval officer Philippe Tailliez. When the war ended, he continued working for the French navy, heading the Undersea Research Group at Toulon . To expand his work in marine exploration, Cousteau founded numerous marketing, manufacturing, engineering, and research organizations, which were incorporated in 1973 as the Cousteau Group. In 1950 he converted a British minesweeper into the Calypso , an oceanographic research ship, aboard which he and his crew carried out numerous expeditions. Cousteau eventually popularized oceanographic research and the sport of scuba diving in the book Le Monde du silence (1953; The Silent World ), written with Frédéric Dumas. In 1956 he adapted the book into a documentary film, codirected with French motion-picture director Louis Malle , that won both the Palme d’Or at that year’s Cannes international film festival and an Academy Award in 1957, one of three Oscars his films received. Also in 1957, Cousteau became director of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco.

He led the Conshelf Saturation Dive Program, conducting experiments in which men lived and worked for extended periods of time at considerable depths along the continental shelves . The undersea laboratories, called Conshelf I, II, and III, sat at depths of 10 metres (about 30 feet), 30 metres (about 100 feet), and 102.4 metres (about 336 feet), respectively, in the Mediterranean Sea near Marseilles. In 1974 he formed the Cousteau Society, a nonprofit environmental group dedicated to marine conservation. Jacques Cousteau.

Question: Which French naval officer invented the aqualung?
Answer: Jacques-Yves Cousteau