Standards of Effective Administration of Inhalation Therapy: Second Report by the Committee on Public Health Relations of the New York Academy of Medicine

Abstract

Recent extension of knowledge concerning the physiology of respiration and the development of improved methods of administering inhalational therapy have made it advisable to review the "Standards of Effective Administration of Inhalational Therapy" formulated by the Committee on Public Health Relations of the New York Academy of Medicine in 1943. It has also seemed appropriate to emphasize again the importance of observing these standards in the everyday practice of inhalational therapy. The importance of inhalational therapy in modern medical practice has been shown by its effective use in cardiac failure, coronary artery disease, asthma, atelectasis of the lungs in the newborn, postoperative atelectasis, pneumonia, pulmonary edema, emphysema and cerebral thrombosis, as well as by its value in the treatment of war gas poisoning, respiratory failure due to poisons and other causes, drowning, severe hemorrhage, acute altitude sickness and shock. The therapeutic use of oxygen is based on the existence of a state of anoxia, that is, lack of oxygen in the tissues.