History of decompression research and development range of commercial, military and recreational diving. The first recorded experimental work related to decompression was conducted by Robert Boyle, who subjected experimental animals to reduced ambient pressure by use of a primitive vacuum pump. In the earliest experiments the subjects died from asphyxiation, but in later experiments, signs of what was later to become known as decompression sickness were observed. Later, when technological advances allowed the use of pressurisation of mines and caissons to exclude water ingress, miners were observed to present symptoms of what would become known as caisson disease, the bends, and decompression sickness. Once it was
Ratio decompression by the body from breathing gases under pressure has never been definitively established, particularly in relation to the formation of bubbles in the body's tissues, and a number of different algorithms have been developed over the years, based on simplified hypotheses of gas transport and absorption in body tissues, modified to fit empirical data, to predict the rate of off-gassing to reduce the risk of decompression sickness in divers to an acceptable level. However, these models do not describe the individual physiology of the diver accurately: divers have been known to suffer symptomatic decompression sickness whilst diving within the limits