The Phillips Airway

摘要

The Phillips airway was developed by George Ramsay Phillips. There is no known original description of the airway and the earliest known reference to it is from 1919. The airway and its modifications are described. The Phillips airway (Figure 1), a modification of the Hewitt airway (Figure 2), was a widely used oropharyngeal airway. It was developed prior to 1920, still marketed in the 1970s and illustrated in textbooks as recently as 1985. There is no known original description of the Phillips airway in a medical journal and no known patent of the airway. A textbook by J. S. Ross (published in 1919) has the earliest known illustration of the airway and a rather unhelpful indication of its inventor, "It was introduced by Dr Phillips". A more specific reference to its inventor was found in a 1929 catalogue of Down Bros. Ltd., London. Despite extensive searches of anaesthesia textbooks and equipment catalogues, this remained the only references to its inventor until confirmation of it was found in a biography of the son of George Ramsay Phillips.