What happened to the field of hyperbaric therapy after the Cunningham Steel Ball?
The whole field fell into some disrepute. Then in 1939 the Navy began treating divers suffering decompression sickness with hyperbaric oxygen therapy; this was different than all the previous uses of hyperbaric therapy, since it compressed pure oxygen. Dr. Cunningham’s Steel ball, and all previous hyperbaric chambers, used only compressed air which, as pointed out above, was no better than just using oxygen from a tank at the patient’s bedside. Apart from Navy use, however, hyperbaric therapy – with air or pure oxygen – was not on any scientific basis, except for a brief period in the mid-1950s when it was used for open heart surgery. However, cardiac bypass machines soon eliminated the need for hyperbaric oxygen therapy in this situation, and the field was again taken over by practitioners with unfounded claims (except in the Navy and a group doing research in the field). In the mid-1970s, the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society — an organization made up largely of Navy and ex-Navy
