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There's been something that I've wondered about for a while...

The reason that we breathe is that we need (essentially) to remove Carbon
Dioxide from our bodies and distribute Oxygen.  It is also well known that
it's the level of Carbon Dioxide in our systems that triggers the urge to
breathe.

What would happen if a (or possibly two) catheter(s) were inserted into an
artery that would send it through an oxygenator?  As long as the oxygenator
removed CO2, you wouldn't feel the need to breathe.  Since you're not
breathing, you don't need a diluent to bring the total pressure of an
inspired gas high enough to allow your chest muscles to draw the gas into
your lungs against the ambient pressure against your thorax.  There are the
problems of preventing clots from being circulated, but I believe that
problem has been somewhat solved for surgical procedures.

Since there is no diluent, there should not be any problems with narcs,
DCI, HPNS, etc.  In fact, the diver wouldn't need anything to cover their
mouth.
They would need a little bottle of some gas to provide a gas space in front
of their eyes to allow proper focusing... or perhaps proper contact lenses
would work.  I don't know about the optical requirements of the eye and
whether it can be corrected for immersion in liquids through the use of
corrective lenses.

Would someone explain to me where this line of reasoning fails, as it seems
to me that this is a far simpler system than, say, 1 ATA suits and some of
the other hoops we jump through to deal with the aforementioned gar-related
problems.

        -- Kevin --

At 9:47 AM 12/6/94, David Doolette wrote:
>Anthony points out regarding the abyss:
>
>>  (8) As the liquid is far denser than air, likely you could tell a habitual
>>liquid breathing diver by work hypertrophy of his respiratory muscles
>>(intercostals etc), and his skeleton by thickened ribs with enlarged
>>intercostal muscle attachment lines.
>
>I expect that when liquid breathing becomes a reality, the breathing system
>will provide positive pressure ventilation.  That is, it provides a small
>pressure differential across the lungs so that inspired fluid is forced into
>the lungs and expired fluid is drawn out, assisting the diver's own
>ventilatory muscles.
>
>regards,
>
>David Doolette
>ddoolett@me*.ad*.ed*.au*
>
>--
>Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@opal.com'.
>Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@opal.com'.

"I'll get around to it today --
          For sufficiently large values of 'today'"

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