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Diving History

Breathing underwater has always been a dream for humans. As we have became more technologically advanced we began racing towards that dream. Ancient swimmers used hollow reeds to breath air from underwater- these were our first snorkels.

In the 1300’s Persian divers made eye-goggles from thinly sliced tortoise shell. Then in about the 16th century wooden barrels were beginning to be used to carry an extra breathe of air for divers, but it only held one breathe. Luckily in 1771 John Smeaton invented an air pump to pump air from the barrel to the diver.

A year later Mr. Freminet from France improved upon the idea by inventing a rebreathing device to supply continuous air. Unfortunately his invention took his life after spending twenty minutes with the contraption- he died of oxygen deprivation.

In 1825 William James designed another self contained breathing device that held enough air for seven minutes of diving.
We were slowly making headway in our pursuit of the underwater realm. In 1876 Henry Fluess invented a closed-circuit rebreather that used pure oxygen. This proved to also be a fatal invention as oxygen is fatal to humans under pressure.
1921 Harry Houdini invented a suit in which the diver could quickly escape if an emergency occurred. The breakthrough for scuba diving came in 1942 when Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan invented the modern demand regulator.

The invention of the regulator defines scuba diving today. Without the lives lost and the hard work inventing and researching humans would have missed out on the beauty of the underwater landscape.

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