Essay About New Invention And New Mixtures

Decompression Illness
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Decompression Illness
My article is on “The Physiology of Decompression Illness.” Since the 1800s
many scientists knew that high pressure can injure or kill. But only recently they
are learning why.
The purpose of studying decompression illness is to make diving safer.
Decompression illness is a condition caused by forming nitrogen bubbles in the
blood as a result of a spontaneous descent. When gas prevents expanding within
the lungs from escaping. is called arterial bas embolism. If a diver panicks during
descent and holds his/her breath this usually occur. Or even if there is a blockage
in a branch of the bronchial tree. In learning to figure out what causes
decompression illness and how to reduce the danger in descent. This means that
more deep-sea divers and
free-swimming divers will be at less jeopardy to have
nuerological problems and other side effects. But not only divers are at at
risk, but also pilots and astronauts who experience drops of pressure.
Scientists have done a variety of testing on divers and pilots concerning
decompression illness. Scientists have researched back to the 1800s when
decompression illness was most common. Many laborers who constructed tunnels
and bridges had symptons of numbness, paralysis, loss of bladder and ocassionly
death. These laborers had to work in caissons, these are pressurized chambers that
had compreesed air which was to prevent flooding. Well this new invention was
the cause of decompression illness. It was unknown until this machine was made.
When the workers left the compressed air chambers and walked back out into
decompressed air they experienced pains and the symptons mentioned
above.
When technology began to allow divers to journey to forty meters, many divers
began to have a newly discovered problem: narcosis. In the early 1900s the navy
began new mixtures suach as replacing nitrtogen , which is less intoxication. This
new method was very successful, but when divers began to reach levels of 1150
meters many began to experience high-pressure nervous syndrome, or HPNS.
Dizziness, vomitting, tremoring, stomach cramps, poor sleep with nightmares, and
a period in which divers only remain conscious while their mind is induced. Once
past 150 meters the divers symtons would be much worse.
Scientists began to study the results of HPNS and concluded that at high-
pressures nitrogen emit their
narcotic effects. In the late 1970s Peter Bennett, a
scientist, used a mixture composed of helium, oxygen and a 5-10% addition of
nitrogen for the first time. Divers were placed in a in chambers of compressed air
equal to those of depths of 460-686 meters.in Duke Uiversity Medical Center. But
still HPNS was the result and in the chamber the density made it harder for the
divers to breathe.
New mixtures of a french diving company, Comex, replaced nitrgen with
hydrogen. Psychosis began to occur at pressures that exceeded 25 atmospheres.
Then in the early 1980 1% oxygen with equal amounts of hydrogen and helium
made a new mixture that was proved successful to depths of 500 meters. A world
record of 701