[100 years of Draeger Medical Technology (1902 - 2002) -- working for the applicability of oxygen]

This survey analyses the history of 100 years of Draeger Medical Technology. Between 1889 and 1902 a number of inventions on the field of pressure gas technology allowed to solve application problems, which until then proved major obstacles to the safe and efficient use of compressed gases such as oxygen, nitrous oxide or carbon dioxide for medical and industrial purposes. A special significance is to be awarded here to pressure reducing valves, but also reliable manometers, nozzles and valves for pressure tanks were not generally available until then. These were first successfully and on a really significant scale introduced into international medical and non-medical pressure-gas technology by Draeger Inc. (Luebeck/Germany), and proved particularly successful in anaesthesia and rescue-devices (e. g. in the "Roth-Draeger Anaesthesia Apparatus" (1902). Consequently, starting in 1902, Draeger Inc. increasingly put an emphasis on developing medical and rescue technology and -- by doing so -- gained an important influence on the history of the implementation of modern oxygen therapy and of inhalative anaesthesia. A survey of the historically most important Draeger-Developments is provided.