| Description Of Item | Head comprises a piston-governed gas mixing chamber connected to inlets for one oxygen cylinder and two nitrous oxide cylinders, and outlets to the breathing circuit. Flow from the cylinders is controlled by plumbers’ gate valves, normally used within a domestic plumbing and heating system. The breathing system comprises a reservoir bag and wide-bore rubber tube leading to a Heidbrink valve, angle piece and facemask. The head is mounted on a pole on a 4-limbed stand on castors. This apparatus seems to have been modelled on the Clark gas oxygen machine (Albert Charles Clark founded a dental equipment firm in Chicago). It was rescued from a storeroom at the RIE, Lauriston Place in 2003. A label attached read ‘To Professor Boyes from KP Whaley as promised for Museum’. [Professor John Boyes was Superintendent of the Edinburgh Dental Hospital for 1948-1966 or longer].
Changes made by donor since discontinuation of active use: Perished wide-bore rubber tube replaced. New reservoir bag, Heidbrink valve, angle piece and facemask fitted. Please note that this has been set up to demonstrate the additional items (sections of tubing/bag/mask/valves) which would have been required for the apparatus to function. However, these replacement parts, despite being of a similar design are not of the era of the machine as presented. Note, any replaced narrow bore tubing is of the precise dimensions and likely colour of the original, fitting exactly as described. However, they are not original. |