Health Sciences · Hospital for Sick Children
A cylindrical artifact consisting of a central clear chamber with metal caps on either end. open ports on the caps permit gasses to flow through the camber. The port that attaches to a face mask, also features a smaller port to permit the introduction of gaseous anesthetic and oxygen. The opposite port has two narrow grooves to assist the fixation of a rubber breathing bag. The chamber is filled with soda lime granules.
Accession Number: 2025.sk.59
Alternative Name:
Metal, Soda lime (sodium hydroxide and calcium oxide).
Markings: Stamped on both end caps: “Foregger.”
Dimensions (cm): Height = 17.5, Width = 5, Length = 5.
This canister was part of a semiclosed rebreather system designed to supply oxygen and anesthetic to a patient without allowing it to escape into the ambient air. This soda-lime canister was designed to remove CO2 from the system so that it did not accumulate over time.
The full “To-and-Fro” apparatus made by the Foregger company consisted of a rubber breathing bag on one end of the canister and a mask on the other. The port on the inlet end would have been attached to a vaporizer for supplying oxygen and anesthetic to the patient.
This canister was designed specifically for infants and small children. It was available in several sizes. (See catalogue image below.)
This artifact is intact and in good cosmetic condition. It has minor wear to its surface finish.
Associated Instruments:
The Foregger Company, inc. New York, New York, USA.
Date of Manufacture: Mid 20th c.
Provenance:
The Foregger Company, inc. “Catalogue Anesthésie et Respiration N°9”
Foregger: New York, 1949. Digitized by Club de l’Histoire de l’Anesthésie et de la Réanimation. (Archived 24 June 2023).
Countway Library of Medicine. Center for the History of Medicine. Harvard University. “Waters To-and-Fro.” Webpage. (Archived 24 December 2025).
Robert M. Smith and Mark A. Rockoff (2011). “History of Pediatric Anesthesia”. In E. K. Motoyama, P. J. Davis, & F. P. Cladis (Eds.), Smith’s Anesthesia for Infants and Children (Eighth Edition, pp. 1294–1308).
The original “To-and-Fro” rebreathing system was designed in 1923 by Dr. Ralph Waters (1883–1979) at the Wisconsin General Hospital in Madison (Forreger 1945, Countway Library).
Manufactured by Foregger in New York, the system was adapted for infants and small children Dr. W. O. McQuiston of the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. This followed the development of the Blalock-Taussig-Thomas (BTT) Shunt that addressed Blue Baby Syndrome (Foregger 1949, 35).
The system had several limitations. It caused heat retention in pediatric patients and led to the respiration of lime dust (Smith and Rockoff 2011, 1299). Its performance changed as the soda lime granules became saturated (Forreger 1945, Countway Library). Nevertheless, such chemical CO2 scrubbers remain an essential component of anesthetic rebreathing equipment.