Health Sciences · Hospital for Sick Children
Eighteen red rubber L-shaped endotracheal tubes. Each tube has a 90° bend roughly 2/3 of the way down its length. The longer distal (tracheal) end of each tube has a tapered tip. The collection is comprised of the following sizes:
Size 3 x 8
Size 4 x 6
Size 5 x 5
Size 6 x 1
Accession Number: 2025.sk.72
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Latex.
Most tubes have similar dark printed markings including the size (three through six) and maker information (“OXFORD// DESIGN// LEYLAND// TRADE MARK”). Tubes may also be marked with one of several indications, namely “ATO”, “HHTE”, “HHTN” and “NTS”.
Several of the tubes have no printing, which was likely erased through repeated autoclaving. These are marked with handwritten numbers indicating the size.
Size 3 (smallest) Height = 8, Width = .5, Length = 4.
An endotracheal tube provides a temporary artificial airway for a patient under general anesthesia. Such tubes typically have an inflatable collar that is used to seal the tube against trachea. These examples do not because they are intended for pediatric use. Uncuffed tubes used in pediatric incubation are meant to seal against a narrowing of the cricoid cartilage in infants and children.
These examples are made of red rubber, and were designed to be reusable. Red rubber tubes remained in use until the 1980s, when they were supplanted by single use polyvinyl chloride.
Tubes are intact and in good condition. In some cases, printed markings are faded or gone entirely. Tubes with illegible markings have been hand marked to indicate size.
Associated Instruments:
Leyland Rubber Components. Manchester, UK.
Date of Manufacture: c. 1960s to 1980s.
Provenance:
C. M. Ball, R. N Westhorpe, and P. J Featherstone (2014). “The Evolution of the Rubber Endotracheal Tube.” Anaesthesia and Intensive Care (United States) 42, no. 4 : 435–36.
These preformed Oxford endotracheal tubes were developed in the 1950s by Robert Reynolds Macintosh (1897-1989), Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetics at Oxford, and his collaborators. The regular Oxford tube had an inflatable cuff. This pediatric version does not.
The Oxford endotracheal tube was designed to be inserted using a Macintosh laryngoscope blade. (See Ball, Westhorpe, and Featherstone 2014, 435).
Reuseable red rubber tubes are no longer widely used, having been replaced by tubes made of softer, single use polyvinyl chloride (PVC).