Murray Wilson’s career was spent in anaesthetics and by nature an inventive man with a great curiosity and desire to find better ways of administering anaesthetics. Dropping ether onto a gauze mask was, surprisingly, happening rather more recently then you might care to imagine! In the early days of gas cylinders of oxygen and nitrous oxide it was all too easy to connect up the piping the wrong way round, which could have fatal consequences. Furthermore it was difficult to gauge when the bottles were running out and after the inadequacies of then current gas failure alarms, such as the Bosun developed by BOC, Murray designed an alarm that overcame these flaws. The design was taken up by Eardley’s of Sheffield – a company better known for producing beer dispensing equipment – and so was born the Eardley gas alarm. Many other ingenious pieces of equipment owe their birth to Murray and perhaps one of his most respected devices is the Sheffield Ventilator designed whilst a Registrar at the Sheffield Children’s Hospital in 1964.
He proved his ability to design equipment is only matched by his wonderful sense of humour! Another fascinating morning!