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Richard von Foregger (27 June 1872 – 18 January 1960) was an Austrian-American chemist, manufacturer and Olympic swimmer. He was born in Austria, educated in Germany and Switzerland, and worked in the United States, where he invented and mass-produced several air regeneration systems. He moved to the US in 1902, obtained citizenship in 1910, and lived there until his death.


Early years

Richard von Foregger was the son of Richard and Elise von Etlinger. His father was a judge and later a senator in the Austrian Parliament. His mother was born and raised in Odessa, then part of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. She taught von Foregger some Russian, in addition to his native German and fluent French and English. He graduated from the
University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...
. There he trained in fencing that left lifelong scars on his face. He continued his education at the University of Stuttgart and the
University of Bern The University of Bern (german: Universität Bern, french: Université de Berne, la, Universitas Bernensis) is a university in the Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It is a compreh ...
, where he defended his PhD in chemistry in 1896. He then worked for a British company in Russia on the construction of the
Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...
. In 1898, he first visited the United States, where he worked until 1900 as an electrical engineer at
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
in Schenectady, New York. In 1900, he returned to Europe and lived in Berlin. That same year he competed for Austria at the 1900 Summer Olympics in 200m freestyle swimming, but he did not reach the finals.


Anesthesiology work

In 1902, von Foregger returned to US to work at the Medical Dioxide Co., in New York. There he first developed a method of producing
peroxide In chemistry, peroxides are a group of compounds with the structure , where R = any element. The group in a peroxide is called the peroxide group or peroxo group. The nomenclature is somewhat variable. The most common peroxide is hydrogen ...
s of magnesium and zinc and then shifted to alkali peroxides aiming to use them for oxygen generation. In 1905, while working at the Roessler and Hasslacher Chemical Co., New York, he produced oxygen by reacting water with fused
sodium peroxide Sodium peroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula Na2O2. This yellowish solid is the product of sodium ignited in excess oxygen. It is a strong base. This metal peroxide exists in several hydrates and peroxyhydrates including Na2O2·2H ...
. He quickly moved from chemical experiments to life supporting systems. In 1906 he performed two public experiments, in which a person was sealed in a box for six hours, and a group of rabbits for 15 hours, without showing any breathing discomforts. Shortly thereafter he designed a portable oxygen generator that was tested by mountain climbers, long-distance runners and bicycle racers. In 1907–1909, he patented it and named Autogenor. Since Roessler and Hasslacher were focused on the production of chemicals and not interested in anesthesiology equipment, in 1914 von Foregger established his own production company. Since 1907, von Foregger closely collaborated with the anesthetist James Tayloe Gwathmey (1862–1944), who introduced Autogenor to Henry Edmund Gaskin Boyle in 1913. Boyle ordered two such devices from the US and later built his own generator based on the Gwathmey-von Foregger design. In the 1910s, von Foregger worked on improving oxygen generators, and in the late 1920s, he introduced the closed-circuit CO2 absorbers in the US. His later work spread into all kinds of anesthetic accessories, and by the 1960s, the products catalogue of his company contained more than 160 pages. In the 1950s, his devices represented about 15% of anesthesia equipment in the US hospitals. He was a keen proponent of the
metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Interna ...
into medical equipment, which is considered as one of his major contributions. Puritan Bennett Corporation acquired Foregger equipment in 1978, in 1981 they were the 1st equipment manufacturer to used electronic gating on breath control and gas and agents to patients. Although this was innovated the concept Puritan Bennett their parent company closed the Athesia division and stopped producing equipment in 1984 Foregger was #2 in anesthesia manufacturers but was closed anyway.


Personal life

Von Foregger was an atheist and avid non-smoker. He married three times. In 1900, while in Berlin he married Elza. After her husband moved to the US, she returned to Berlin and their marriage was dissolved. In 1911 von Foregger married Dorothy Ledwith (1891–1981) from New York. They had two sons, John Herbert Foregger (1914–2005) and Richard Foregger (1912–2010); Richard was also a renowned anesthesiologist and wrote a detailed biography of his father. Von Foregger and Ledwith were divorced in 1927. In 1946 von Foregger married his housekeeper, Lillie Mae Holt (1900–1990). In the late 1950s, his mental condition deteriorated and he was diagnosed with paranoid
psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
, though this diagnosis was strongly contested by Holt. After his death in 1960, his company changed owners several times and was dissolved in 1987.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Foregger, Richard 1872 births 1960 deaths Swimmers from Vienna Austrian male freestyle swimmers Austrian anesthesiologists American anesthesiologists Swimmers at the 1900 Summer Olympics Olympic swimmers of Austria Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Austrian people of Ukrainian descent Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States Austro-Hungarian expatriates in the Russian Empire Austro-Hungarian expatriates in Germany