Letter from Karl A. Connell to Virginia Apgar

Connell Apparatus manufactured and serviced the anesthesia machines used at Presbyterian Hospital. During Apgar's first years as director of the Anesthesia Division, the hospital grappled with the problem of explosions resulting from accidental ignition of anesthesia gases in the operating room. It was not always clear where the sparks originated in these accidents, and Connell worked with the hospital staff to discover which equipment and materials were causing them. In this letter, Connell described a modification to the equipment and other methods to reduce the risk of sparking from static electricity.; Item is handwritten.