Archie Brain (born 2 July 1942) is a British

anaesthetist Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology, or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine ...

best known as the inventor of the laryngeal mask. The LMA has been used over 300 million times worldwide in elective

anaesthesia Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), a ...

and emergency airway management.

Biography

Brain returned to the UK in April 1980 and took up a post as a lecturer at the

Royal London Hospital The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and s ...

under Professor Jimmy Payne. He set out to determine the electromagnetic field strength required to block the action potential along a nerve. This involved encircling a frog nerve-muscle preparation with an electromagnetic coil. In 1982, he had his first publication: a letter to the editor suggesting that alcuronium should be used instead of succinylcholine for "crash" induction. Brain submitted patent applications for 12 new devices, including one to assist

venepuncture In medicine, venipuncture or venepuncture is the process of obtaining intravenous access for the purpose of venous Sampling (medicine)#blood, blood sampling (also called ''phlebotomy'') or intravenous therapy. In healthcare, this procedure is p ...

, one to prevent obstruction of anaesthetic trolleys by cables, one to apply a specific amount of

cricoid pressure Cricoid pressure, also known as the Sellick manoeuvre or Sellick maneuver, is a technique used in endotracheal intubation to try to reduce the risk of regurgitation. The technique involves the application of pressure to the cricoid cartilage at the ...

, and even a rotating bed for use in intensive care to prevent bed-sores. The laryngeal mask, LMA Classic was his 13th patent application and was granted in 1982. The LMA Classic was sold by LMA International NV, a company sold to Teleflex Inc in 2012 for $276m.

Biography

References

Further reading