Professor Albrecht James-Littleton
In 1854, one Albrecht James-Littleton unveiled the creation of his first assisted circulation and breathing device. Named the “Breathing Bed”, the user had to be strapped in place so as not to disrupt the careful tubes and servos necessary to keep it working.
Five years later Professor James-Littleton introduced the new portable model, called the “Walking Breather”, it was the pinnacle of Victorian medical science.
Harnessed about the chest and held in place with complex collection of straps, ties, knots, buttons, screws, nuts, bults, nails, glue, caulk, rope, string, twine, spit, feathers, bows, and one crude zipper (the source of a future lawsuit with Elias Howe, as it was used out of patent) the portable model was lauded by Joseph Lister, Charles Darwin, Lord Shaftesbury, and Charles Dickens, who credited it with saving the life of a distant cousin, calling it “the most fascinating medical device since the opium pipe.”
For it’s invention, Professor James-Littleton was given a knighthood in the Royal Victorian Order in 1898.
We now think of the “Walking Breather” as a crude and dangerous device. Though portable in design, the chances of surviving the installation procedure were low, and most who did suffered so much blood loss and infection that the lives that were saved were short and quite painful. Still, on this, the sesquicentennial anniversary of the introduction of the portable model, we are pleased to present this new shirt design in commemoration.
This shirt is a reproduction of the original, working prototype created by Professor James-Littleton and attached to black-lung suffering coal minor, Arthur Johns. Mr. Johns lived a full 12 hours with the device as his sole means of respiration and circulation, before succumbing to blood loss, toxic shock syndrome, massive renal failure, and an exploded spleen. Though the type our design is based on was made of steel, iron, wood and waxed paper, future models were made of finer materials, the best being a solid gold model with silver accents and whale-leather bellows made for Archibald Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery.
This design is available for both gentlemen and ladies of good moral fiber and a love of scientific history.