Under Pressure: The Birth of Hyperbaric Medicine in Minnesota

The Hennepin Healthcare History Center’s exhibit, Under Pressure: The Birth of Hyperbaric Medicine in Minnesota, opened this month in the HCMC Blue Building’s lower-level lobby and tunnel. The display features early images and objects from the hospital’s first hyperbaric chamber that opened in 1964 and the second chamber which opened in 2012.

The hyperbaric chamber is a pressurized room where patients undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which involves exposing high concentrations of oxygen to your blood and tissues to treat infections, tissue injuries, poisoning, and other medical conditions.

You can also visit the History Center’s online virtual exhibit to learn more about the hyperbaric chambers. Here, you will find a 1964 letter from Dr. Claude Hitchcock, President of the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation (now HHRI), introducing the newly opened hyperbaric research facility. Dr. Hitchcock and his colleagues were early pioneers of hyperbaric medicine in the United States.

Related research: HOBIT – Hyperbaric Oxygen Brain Injury Treatment Trial

HCMC is part of a national research study that will see if high dose oxygen given under pressure can help people aged 16-65 with severe traumatic brain injury. This treatment is also known as hyperbaric oxygen treatment.

The study was originally conceived and designed by Hennepin Healthcare Neurosurgeon Dr. Gaylan Rockswold.

Photo credit: Hennepin Healthcare History Center Archives