Alvan Leroy Barach (1895–1977) was an American physician who made important contributions to pulmonary rehabilitation and oxygen therapy.
Barach wrote that he had been able to keep laboratory mice alive in an environment composed purely of 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen; noble gases had been carefully excluded.
[3] The oxygen tent had been introduced in the 1920s, and Barach turned the device into a closed system by adding ice chunks for cooling and soda lime for the absorption of the patient's exhaled carbon dioxide.
In a 1964 meeting before the New York State Medical Society, he urged the creation of clinics that could teach smokers a technique for enjoying cigarettes without inhaling the smoke.
[7] Though Barach was a full-time pulmonary specialist, he practiced psychoanalysis in his spare time and claimed to have analyzed a number of notable individuals, including Dorothy Parker and Cissy Patterson.