ABSTRACT
Many hazards of the past are hazards, and all too frequently no lessons have been learned from the accidents they have caused. Entry into a restricted space is one of the dangers. In early times mining and the sinking of wells were the common occasions of what is technically known as confined space entry, and in AD 79, when he wrote his Natural History, Pliny the Elder stressed the importance of ventilation. Professor Haldane identified the gas responsible, and his investigation led to the adoption of certain precautions such as safety ropes for workers in confined spaces and the ventilation of sewers before entry. At the end of the nineteenth century Haldane arrived on the scene and interested himself in the physiology of respiration. He investigated many accidents, one of which had taken place in 1895 in a 27 ft deep well at the East Ham Sewage Works in London.
