Only after the invention of the scuba tank in 1942 did man overcome the most formidable obstacle to diving: breathing underwater. Before that, people could only envy the fish and devise complicated systems in which divers breathed oxygen from tanks connected to compressors on board ship, in what was an expensive and highly inconvenient operation.
因此雖然遠古以來，人類素有「羨魚」之念，也有用麥管突出水面呼吸；頭戴鋼盔，盔上管線接連船中壓縮空氣的人工幫浦等方法，但直到一九四二年，被稱為「水肺」的空氣筒發明，潛水運動才算真正起步。