Editing Respirator (section)

=== Earliest records to 19th century ===
[[File: Medico peste.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Plague doctor]]]]
The history of protective respiratory equipment can be traced back as far as the first century, when [[Pliny the Elder]] ({{circa|23 AD}}–79) described using animal bladder skins to protect workers in Roman mines from red lead oxide dust.<ref>{{cite wikisource | title=Naturalis_Historia/Liber_XXXIII#XL|wslanguage=la}}</ref> In the 16th century, [[Leonardo da Vinci]] suggested that a finely woven cloth dipped in water could protect sailors from a toxic weapon made of powder that he had designed.<ref>{{cite web |date=11 September 2001 |title=Women in the US Military&nbsp;– History of Gas Masks |url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/rr/s01/cw/students/leeann/historyandcollections/collections/photopages/phesgasmasks.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110512042523/http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/rr/s01/cw/students/leeann/historyandcollections/collections/photopages/phesgasmasks.html |archive-date=12 May 2011 |access-date=18 April 2010 |publisher=Chnm.gmu.edu}}</ref>

[[Alexander von Humboldt]] introduced a primitive respirator in 1799 when he worked as a mining engineer in Prussia.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LW1oAAAAcAAJ|title=Ueber die unterirdischen Gasarten und die Mittel ihren Nachtheil zu vermindern|website=WorldAtlas|year=1799|language=en|access-date=2020-03-27|last1=Humboldt|first1=Alexander von}}</ref>

[[Julius Jeffreys]] first used the word "respirator" as a mask in 1836.<ref name="Zuck-1990">{{cite journal|author=David Zuck|date=1990|title=Julius Jeffreys: Pioneer of humidification|url=http://kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/21/120/15-78-188-22-1990-Zuck-JeffreysResp.pdf|journal=Proceedings of the History of Anaesthesia Society|volume=8b|pages=70–80|access-date=16 August 2020|archive-date=4 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104215545/http://kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/21/120/15-78-188-22-1990-Zuck-JeffreysResp.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:John Stenhouse's mask.png|thumb|left|Woodcut of Stenhouse's mask]]
In 1848, the first US patent for an air-purifying respirator was granted to [[Lewis P. Haslett]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Christianson|first=Scott|title=Fatal Airs: The Deadly History and Apocalyptic Future of Lethal Gases that Threaten Our World|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2010|isbn=9780313385520|author-link=Scott Christianson}}</ref> for his 'Haslett's Lung Protector,' which filtered dust from the air using one-way clapper valves and a filter made of moistened wool or a similar [[porosity|porous]] substance.<ref>{{cite patent |country=US |number=6529A |status=patent |title=Lung Protector |pubdate=1849-06-12 |gdate=1849-06-12 |inventor=Lewis P. Haslett |url=https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/002066829/publication/US6529A?q=US6529A }} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308054414/https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/002066829/publication/US6529A?q=US6529A |date=8 March 2021 }}</ref> Hutson Hurd patented a cup-shaped mask in 1879 which became widespread in industrial use.<ref>{{Cite patent|title=Improvement in inhaler and respirator|gdate=1879-08-26|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US218976A/en}}</ref>

Inventors in Europe included [[John Stenhouse]], a Scottish chemist, who investigated the power of charcoal in its various forms, to capture and hold large volumes of gas. He built one of the first respirators able to remove toxic gases from the air, paving the way for [[activated carbon|activated charcoal]] to become the most widely used filter for respirators.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Britain|first=Royal Institution of Great|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_tfkAAAAAYAAJ|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_tfkAAAAAYAAJ/page/n63 53]|title=Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution, with Abstracts of the Discourses|date=1858|publisher=W. Nicol, Printer to the Royal Institution|language=en}}</ref> Irish physicist [[John Tyndall]] took Stenhouse's mask, added a filter of cotton wool saturated with [[calcium hydroxide|lime]], [[glycerin]], and charcoal, and in 1871 invented a 'fireman's respirator', a hood that filtered smoke and gas from air, which he exhibited at a meeting of the [[Royal Society]] in London in 1874.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tyndall|first=John|date=1873|title=On Some Recent Experiments with a Fireman's Respirator|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London|volume=22|pages=359–361|jstor=112853|bibcode=1873RSPS...22R.359T|issn=0370-1662}}</ref> Also in 1874, Samuel Barton patented a device that 'permitted respiration in places where the atmosphere is charged with noxious gases, or vapors, smoke, or other impurities.'<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://67.225.133.110/~gbpprorg/invention/development.html|title=Gas Mask Development (1926)|website=67.225.133.110|access-date=2020-03-27|archive-date=27 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210227141330/http://67.225.133.110/~gbpprorg/invention/development.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite patent |country=US |number=148868A |status=patent |title=Respirator |pubdate=1874-03-24 |gdate=1874-03-24 |inventor=Samuel Barton |url=https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/002218281/publication/US148868A?q=US148868A }} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308180749/https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/002218281/publication/US148868A?q=US148868A |date=8 March 2021 }}</ref>

In the 1890s, the German surgeon Johannes Mikulicz began using a "mundbinde" ("mouth bandage") of sterilized cloth as a barrier against microorganisms moving from him to his patients. Along with his surgical assistant Wilhelm Hübener, he adapted a chloroform mask with two layers of cotton mull. Experiments conducted by Hübener showed that the "mouth bandage" or "surgical mask" (German: Operationsmaske, as Hübener called it) blocked bacteria.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lowry |first1=H. C. |title=Some Landmarks in Surgical Technique |journal=The Ulster Medical Journal |year=1947 |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=102–113 |pmid=18898288 |pmc=2479244 }}</ref><ref>Schlich T, Strasser BJ. Making the medical mask: surgery, bacteriology, and the control of infection (1870s–1920s). Medical History. 2022;66(2):116-134. doi:10.1017/mdh.2022.5</ref>