The History of the Asthma Inhaler | Innovation|Smithsonian Publication

In April 1955, 13-year-old Susie Maison asked her dad, the pharmacologist George L. Maison, whether there wasn’t a much easier method to treat her asthma. Like so numerous other individuals with the condition, she ‘d been utilizing an awkward squeeze-bulb nebulizer, and she wondered why her medicine wasn’t offered in a spray can, “like they do hairspray,” she said. Nebulizers of that period were more efficient than the medicated “asthma cigarettes” formerly in style, Susie’s dad, too, had actually been irritated by the cumbersome procedure of cooling the vials of medicine and loading them into the fragile contraption.

Maison was no complete stranger to development. As a Flying force lieutenant during The second world war, he planned the first system for aerial rescue behind enemy lines and earned a Legion of Benefit award for improving the anti-gravity fit. At the Boston University School of Medication after the war, he developed Veriloid, the first commonly distributed prescription drug to treat hypertension successfully.

Now, as president of Riker Laboratories in Los Angeles, Maison was in the uncommon position to investigate his daughter’s question. He appointed Riker’s lead chemist, Irving Porush, to experiment with the possibility of a pressurized gadget. At the time, Riker was owned by Rexall Drugs, which did undoubtedly make hairspray. Loaning know-how on propellants and aerosols from the cosmetics service technicians down the hall, and utilizing a recently patented metering valve efficient in delivering exact amounts of atomized liquid, Porush created the first metered-dose inhaler (MDI) in just 2 months. By March 1956, the Fda had authorized 2 new aerosol drugs for asthma, in addition to Porush’s gadget for providing them.

“It was a video game changer,” states Stephen Stein, a researcher at Kindeva Drug Shipment (a descendant of Riker Labs) and co-author of a recent history of healing aerosols.

Today, sales of pharmaceutical inhalers exceed $36 billion globally each year, and the device has actually puffed its way into case history, enhancing the lives of millions: More than 2,000 people all over the world usage one every second.

This short article is a selection from the September 2020 problem of Smithsonian magazine