Abstract
ATTENTION is directed in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (Nov. 3, p. 1239) to a description of a mask which appeared in vol. 43 of the Society's Transactions (1825). It was designed by John Roberts, of St. Helens, Lancashire, “to enable porsons to breathe in thick smoke or in air loaded with suffocating vapours”, and was effective against smoke and also against a gas such as sulphurous acid. It consisted of a leather hood with two apertures filled with glass or mica to see through. The hood descended to the bottom of the neck, was well wadded at the bottom, so as to be rendered airtight, or nearly so, when secured by the straps attached. From the nose a flexible leather pipe is attached, terminating at the bottom in a trumpet-shaped piece of japanned tinplate, the open end of which is plugged with a moist sponge kept in place by a piece of coarse cloth. Breathing is carried on through the tube, and any particles in the air or vapours or gases in any considerable degree absorbable by water are removed by the cloth filter and the moist sponge. An illustration shows a very workman-like piece of apparatus. Details are given of various tests that were made with it.
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An Early Gas Mask. Nature 144, 1040 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/1441040b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1441040b0