Roth-Dräger Mask

Businessman Heinrich Draeger (1847-1917) and his son Bernhard Draeger (1870-1928) founded Draegerwerk AG in Lubeck, Germany in 1889. In that year the company introduced its first anesthesia machine, made for Lubeck surgeon Otto Roth, M.D. (1863-1944). The apparatus administered chloroform in oxygen. Dr. Roth demonstrated the machine on April 5, 1902, at the 31st Annual German Congress of Surgeons, held in Berlin. The demonstration was reported as a "marvel of surgery" on the front page of the next day's issue of the Indianapolis Journal. It has been estimated that within ten years over 1,500 Roth-Draeger Apparatus had been sold. Draegerwerk went on to become one of the world's largest manufacturers of anesthesia equipment.

At one time Dr. Roth was a coworker with Curt Schimmelbusch, M.D. (1860-1895), inventor of a widely-used wire anesthesia mask. Roth's sheet-metal mask could deliver the anesthetic while admitting fresh air through a small opening, and its ergonomic shape provided a closer fit. Draeger later used masks of this shape in other equipment, including the Pulmotor resuscitator and the Schmidt-Sudeck anesthesia apparatus. The influence of the Roth-Draeger mask can be seen in many other inventors' designs, including the Tuffier inhaler.