ABSTRACT
Humans have dived in water for work and for pleasure over many thousands of years. The principal limit on the duration of a dive is a human’s inability to breathe underwater. The advent of equipment that allows a diver to carry extra gas to breathe revolutionised human exploitation of the underwater world, but also introduced new hazards. The lungs have an important role in the majority of diving-related disorders but, depending on the specic disorder, they can act as victim, guardian, accomplice or perpetrator.
