History
The connection between pressure and the solubility of gases in liquids was established as early as 1670 by Robert Boyle.However, it was not until 1857 that Felix Hoppe-Seyler established the theory of gas embolism as the cause of decompression sickness. There were then further investigations on diving depth and diving time. However, it was not until 1878 that Paul Bert’s first textbook for divers was published, recommending that a decompression time of 20 minutes per bar of pressure relief should be maintained.
This recommendation was valid for the next 30 years. John Scott-Haldane found out through experiments on sheep that there are different tissues that rise and fall at different rates. He was the first to publish decompression tables for the different tissue classes.
However, his tables only went down to 58m depth. These tables formed the basis for research for the next 25 years. Haldane had taken a very simple model as basis for his tables.
He assumed that the degree of saturation or desaturation was only dependent on the blood flow. In the years that followed, research was done to refine the whole thing and to calculate for greater depths. 1958 the most common tables were those of the US Navy.
They were based on 6 tissue classes and variable saturation factors. The dive tables were eventually replaced by dive computers, which were much more complex in recording the processes of diving. But even the computers cannot exclude all risks, because even they cannot capture all the complex processes in the body. Studies are currently underway to better control the formation of microbubbles.
