The Evolution of Scuba Diving

The official roots of diving as we know it today can be traced back to 1941, when American Christian J. Lambertsen designed the first rebreathing equipment to be called SCUBA 'Self-Contained Underwater Oxygen Breathing Apparatus', for the US army.

Lambertsons’s inspiration has a history of its own, influenced no doubt by the likes of the Deane brothers who exploded onto the scene in the 1820’s with a series of brilliant devices and scuba gimmicks. Their contributions include evolving a fire fighter’s helmet into a model aimed at the diving market, secured to the suit with straps.

Five years later William H. James patented a self contained suit with a compressed air tank strapped to the waist. Beginning to sound familiar?

In 1865 Auguste Denayrouze and Benoît Rouquayrol took the all the aforementioned ideas and combined them into an 85 kilo ‘suit’ with a usable air supply. Illusionist Harry Houdini took this a step further by inventing a dive suit that allowed for, you guessed it, a quick escape in the event of danger. Soon after, a certain Augustus Siebe reverted to a more watertight rubber version, inspired by da Vinci’s designs in the meanwhile, combining the Deane brothers’ helmet into his equation, which was later used during a warship salvage mission.

Inevitable side effects such as Decompression sickness or the ‘bends’ began to emerge among coal miners in 1841 and was clinically analysed in France by B. Pol and T.J.J. Wattelle. No matter, things were on a roll, the Navy established the first diving school in 1843, after which Denayrouze and Rouquayrol patented the earliest version of a tank with compressed air and mouthpiece.

It didn’t stop there…in 1865 the two designed an apparatus with tank and backpack that fed air through a demand regulator – the first of its kind known as ‘aerophore’ or ‘air carrier’. It was only until the late 19th century that high pressure air and gas tanks emerged. The demand regulator stayed off the scene until 1939.

A self contained helium and oxygen rebreathing apparatus adjoined to a bottom-walking suit was adopted by the American Diving Equipment and Salvage Company in 1936.

The image at the top left is a illustration of Augustus Siebe's design in the late 19th century.