Hyperbaric medicine is older than most people assume, and its path from curiosity to evidence-based therapy is instructive.
Early experiments
As early as 1662, the British clergyman-physician Henshaw built a pressurized room he called the "domicilium," reasoning that pressure changes might treat various ailments — well ahead of any understanding of why. For two centuries, pressurized chambers came and went as unproven curiosities.
The scientific turn
The real foundation came from diving and aviation medicine, where the dangers of pressure — decompression sickness, air embolism — demanded scientific study. Recompression became the established treatment for the bends, and remains the origin story of the field.
Modern practice
In the mid-20th century, work by Boerema and others ("life without blood") demonstrated how much oxygen pressure could dissolve into plasma, opening HBOT to wound care, infection, and radiation injury. Today the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society maintains the evidence-reviewed list of accepted indications, and the field continues to separate established uses from hopeful ones.
Educational content, not medical advice — see our medical disclaimer. Terms in dotted teal link to the glossary.