Albert R. Behnke

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Albert Richard Behnke Jr., MD
San Francisco, California
AllegianceUnited States United States of America
Service/branchUnited States Navy
Years of service1929–1959
RankCaptain
AwardsNavy and Marine Corps Medal

recompression therapy.[3][4]

Behnke is also known as the "modern-day father" of human body composition for his work in developing the hydrodensitometry method of measuring body density, his standard man and woman models as well as a somatogram based on anthropometric measurements.[5]

Early life

Behnke was born August 8, 1903, in

Harvard School of Public Health.[1]

Naval career

Following medical school in 1930, Behnke found his lifelong interest in

deep sea diving when he was assigned as an assistant medical officer to USS Holland and Submarine Division Twenty in San Diego under the command of Chester W. Nimitz.[1] In addition to his other duties, Behnke spent time covering medical watch on USS Ortolan, a submarine rescue ship, where he performed his first hard hat dive.[1]

In 1932 Behnke wrote a letter to the

arterial gas embolisms he was seeing related to submarine escape training.[1] This separated the symptoms of arterial gas embolism (AGE) from those of decompression sickness.[3] This letter caught the attention of the director of the submarine medicine in the Bureau of Medicine, Captain E.W. Brown.[1] Brown sent Behnke to do postgraduate work at the Harvard School of Public Health and research on diving and submarine medicine with fellow student Charles W. Shilling.[1] Philip Drinker asked Behnke to stay for two additional years and the Navy allowed it.[citation needed
]

Submarine Escape Training Tower. Later that year, Behnke et al. experimented with oxygen for recompression therapy.[4] Evidence of the effectiveness of recompression therapy utilizing oxygen was later shown by Yarbrough and Behnke and has since become the standard of care for treatment of DCS.[6][7]

Behnke also began to outline his idea for a medical laboratory in 1936.

decompression tables.[3][8]

After being transferred to Washington, D.C., in 1938, Behnke was assigned to medical duty at the Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU).[1]

The submarine USS

cognitive impairment symptoms associated with such deep dives, thereby confirming Behnke's theory of nitrogen narcosis.[3]

Later in 1939, Behnke and Yarborough demonstrated that gases other than nitrogen also could cause narcosis.[10] From his results, he deduced that xenon gas could serve as an anesthetic, even under normobaric conditions but was too scarce to allow for confirmation. Although Lazharev, in Russia, apparently studied xenon anesthesia in 1941, the first published report confirming xenon anesthesia was in 1946 by J. H. Lawrence, who experimented on mice. Xenon was first used as a surgical anesthetic in 1951 by Stuart C. Cullen, who successfully operated on two patients.[11]

Taking advantage of the positive public support for Navy diving following the Squalus rescue, Behnke contacted Franklin D. Roosevelt and with Presidential interest known, received approval for the construction of his research laboratory (NMRI).[1]

On December 7, 1941, when the attack on Pearl Harbor began, Behnke was at sea on USS Lexington and immediately reassigned to medical posts around Hawaii.[1]

Behnke returned to Washington and soon opened NMRI as the "research executive" in October 1942.[1] Behnke focused his interest in how physical fitness and fat content effects inert gas elimination and started projects to evaluate this relationship. His research lead us to consider him the "modern-day father" of human body composition for "his pioneering studies of hydrostatic weighing in 1942, the development of a reference man and woman model, and somatogram based on anthropometric measurements underlie much current work in body composition assessment"[5][12]

In 1942 Behnke made the first proposal for operational saturation diving and its economic benefit pertaining to work in caissons and pressurized tunnels.[13]

When the people of

Occupied Germany were suffering from starvation, Behnke focused his attention to increasing their food ration.[1]

Behnke remained at NMRI until 1950 when he was transferred to his final assignment at the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL) at the

San Francisco Naval Shipyard.[1] His work on physical fitness and body habitus continued in projects surrounding radiological shelters and decontamination.[14]

In 1950, Behnke earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal "for saving the life of a civilian skin diver who surfaced too quickly off Monterey. Behnke, then a Navy captain, spent two days in a decompression chamber with the man."[15][16]

Upon retiring from the Navy in 1959, Behnke turned over command of the NRDL to Captain Harry S. Etter.[15]

Civilian career

Upon his retirement from the Navy in 1959, Behnke became a professor of

preventive medicine at the University of California and Director of the Institute of Applied Biology, Presbyterian Medical Center, San Francisco, California.[1]

Behnke served on the first Board of Advisors for the National Association of Underwater Instructors and taught medical aspects of diving at their first Instructor Candidate Course that started on August 26, 1960, in Houston, TX.[17]

The bends prevention and safety program for crews working in underground caissons to build the Bay Area Rapid Transit system was designed by Behnke in 1964.[16][18]

Behnke with several other researchers founded the Undersea Medical Society (now the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society) in 1967.[citation needed]

The term "

oxygen window" was first used by Behnke in 1967.[19] Behnke refers to early work by Momsen on "partial pressure vacancy" (PPV)[20] where he used partial pressures of O2 and He as high as 2-3 ATA to create a maximal PPV.[21] Behnke then goes on to describe "isobaric inert gas transport" or "inherent unsaturation" as termed by LeMessurier and Hills,[22] and separately by Hills,[23][24][25] who made their independent observations at the same time. Van Liew et al. also made a similar observation that they did not name at the time.[26] The clinical significance of their work was later shown by Sass.[27]

In 1975, Behnke was involved with experiments on cosmic particle radiation for the Apollo program.[28]

Behnke award

Starting in 1969, the Behnke award has been given annually by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, Inc. to a scientist for outstanding scientific contributions to advances in undersea biomedical activity. The award carries an honorarium and a plaque. The first recipient was Behnke.[1]

Awards and honors

Established in 1916 and awarded by the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, the Sir Henry S. Wellcome Medal and Prize is awarded annually for "the research work most valuable for the military service performed in any branch of medicine, surgery, or sanitation". Behnke was the 1941 recipient.[29]

Behnke received the American College of Sports Medicine's Honor Award in 1976.[5][30]

In 1977, Behnke was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) degree from Whittier College.[31]

The Navy dedicated the NMRI Hyperbaric Research Facility on July 1, 1981, to Behnke.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 0889-0242
    .
  2. ^
    ISSN 0889-0242
    .
  3. ^
    OCLC 16986801. Archived from the original on September 5, 2011. Retrieved February 18, 2010.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link
    )
  4. ^
    doi:10.1152/ajplegacy.1936.114.3.526
    . Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  5. ^
    ISBN 0-7817-4990-5
    . Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  6. ISSN 0095-9030
    .
  7. ^ Berghage, Thomas E; Vorosmarti, James Jr.; Barnard, EEP (1978). "Recompression treatment tables used throughout the world by government and industry". US Naval Medical Research Center Technical Report. NMRI-78-16. Archived from the original on August 5, 2009. Retrieved February 18, 2010.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. ^ Behnke, Albert R (1937). "The application of measurements of nitrogen elimination to the problem of decompressing divers". US Naval Medical Bulletin. 35: 219–240.
  9. ^ a b c d Behnke, Albert R (1939). "Log of Diving During Rescue and Salvage Operations of the USS Squalus: Diving Log of USS Falcon, 24 May 1939-12 September 1939". U.S. Navy, reprinted by Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society in 2001. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  10. doi:10.1152/ajplegacy.1939.126.2.409
    .
  11. PMID 11064688
    . Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  12. PMID 19312284
    .
  13. ^ Behnke, A., "Effects of High Pressures; Prevention and Treatment of Compressed Air Illness," Med. Clin. N. Am., (1942), 1213-1237
  14. PMID 13628431
    .
  15. ^ a b Baugh, Ken, ed. (1959). "The history of the US Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 22, 2011. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  16. ^ a b staff (February 1, 1992). "Dr. Albert Behnke; Expert on Divers' Problems". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  17. ^ Tillman, Albert A; Tillman, Thomas T. "The history of NAUI" (PDF). Scuba America Historical Foundation. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  18. PMID 6065140
    .
  19. ^ Behnke, Albert R (1967). "The New Thrust Seaward". Transcript Third Marine Technology Society Conference. San Diego: Marine Technology Society. Archived from the original on August 20, 2008. Retrieved February 18, 2010.{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  20. ^ Momsen, Charles (1942). "Report on Use of Helium Oxygen Mixtures for Diving". United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit Technical Report (42–02). Archived from the original on October 7, 2008. Retrieved February 18, 2010.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  21. ISBN 0-7020-0274-7
    .
  22. ^ LeMessurier, DH; Hills, Brian A (1965). "Decompression Sickness. A thermodynamic approach arising from a study on Torres Strait diving techniques". Hvalradets Skrifter. 48: 54–84.
  23. ^ Hills, Brian A (1966). "A thermodynamic and kinetic approach to decompression sickness". PhD Thesis. Adelaide, Australia: Libraries Board of South Australia.
  24. ISBN 0-471-99457-X
    .
  25. OCLC 16986801. Archived from the original on October 7, 2008. Retrieved February 18, 2010.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link
    )
  26. PMID 5837620
    . Retrieved June 11, 2009.
  27. OCLC 2068005. Archived from the original on January 13, 2013. Retrieved February 18, 2010.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link
    )
  28. PMID 239672
    .
  29. ^ Firth, Margaret A (1956). "Handbook of Scientific and Technical Awards in the United States and Canada (1900–1952)". Special Libraries Association. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  30. ^ "Past Honor/Citation Recipients". American College of Sports Medicine. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  31. ^ "Honorary Degrees | Whittier College". www.whittier.edu. Retrieved 2020-02-26.

External links

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