The concept of ventilatory support is not new. It has been reported that BC
Egyptians and Greeks described the theories of respiration. The Old Testament
(800 BC) tells us that the Prophet Elisha induced mouth to mouth pressure
breathing in a dying child! Much later, in the sixteenth century Theophrastus
Bombastus von Hohenheim, or the “Famoso Doctor” Paracelsus, also known as
the “wandering spirit,” used the fire bellows of the time as devices for assisted
ventilation: they were connected to the patients by a tube inserted in the mouth. In
the following centuries, medical pioneers such as Vesalius, Hooke, Fathergill, and
Hunter, among others, continued to advance the concept of ventilatory support,
while others in the engineering field developed devices to expand its application.