Maurice Fernez [SEP] place of death
Maurice Fernez
Maurice Fernez (30 August 1885 - 31 January 1952, Alfortville, Paris, France) was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of underwater breathing apparatus, respirators and gas masks. He was pivotal in the transition of diving from the tethered diving helmet and suit of the nineteenth century to the free diving with self-contained equipment of the twentieth century. All Fernez invented apparatus were surface-supplied but his inventions, especially his mouthpiece equipped with a one-way valve, inspired the scuba diving pioneer
contained unit.
The first open-circuit scuba system was devised in 1925 by Yves Le Prieur in France. Inspired by the simple apparatus of Maurice Fernez and the freedom it allowed the diver, he conceived an idea to make it free of the tube to the surface pump by using Michelin cylinders as the air supply, containing of air compressed to . The "Fernez-Le Prieur" diving apparatus was demonstrated at the swimming pool of Tourelles in Paris in 1926. The unit consisted of a cylinder of compressed air carried