Archie Brain (born 2 July 1942) is a British

anaesthetist Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology, or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medici ...

best known as the inventor of the

laryngeal mask A laryngeal mask airway (LMA), also known as laryngeal mask, is a medical device that keeps a patient's airway open during anaesthesia or while they are unconscious. It is a type of supraglottic airway device. They are most commonly used by anae ...

. The LMA has been used over 300 million times worldwide in elective

anaesthesia Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), am ...

and emergency

airway management Airway management includes a set of maneuvers and medical procedures performed to prevent and relieve airway obstruction. This ensures an open pathway for gas exchange between a patient's lungs and the atmosphere. This is accomplished by either c ...

Biography

Brain returned to the UK in April 1980 and took up a post as a lecturer at the

Royal London Hospital The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and ...

under Professor Jimmy Payne. He set out to determine the electromagnetic field strength required to block the action potential along a nerve. This involved encircling a frog nerve-muscle preparation with an electromagnetic coil. In 1982, he had his first publication: a letter to the editor suggesting that alcuronium should be used instead of succinylcholine for "crash" induction. Brain submitted patent applications for 12 new devices, including one to assist venepuncture, one to prevent obstruction of anaesthetic trolleys by cables, one to apply a specific amount of cricoid pressure, and even a rotating bed for use in intensive care to prevent bed-sores. The

, LMA Classic was his 13th patent application and was granted in 1982. The LMA Classic was sold by LMA International NV, a company sold to Teleflex Inc in 2012 for $276m.

Biography

References

Further reading