.

             There is no way, of course, to render the food and people impervious to flame, so smoking is prohibited everywhere in the facility, and only hospital issued non-sparking shoes are permitted. Even the books in the HyperSpa library are printed on thin, flexible metal "pages.".

             Though we are building the world"s largest hyperbaric facility, the technology we use to achieve our ends is one that has roots, albeit on a smaller scale, going back to 1662 when an inventor named Henshaw invented the first hyperbaric chamber (Cole, 2003). Very few medical treatments can boast of such a long and continuous line of development. In other words, the technology we are using, though novel in the specific form it takes and in the way we are applying it, comes from a long line of predecessors that have yielded proven results.

             HyperSpa is a closely-held corporation, and 51% of our start up capital is owned by only five principal investors. Thus, the company is sufficiently flush with cash (almost $200 million) that, assuming we do not exceed our budgets by more than 20%, we should be able to build and operate the prototype facility for the first year without further increasing our debt load. Further, since so few people have a controlling interest in the company, we are not concerned about HyperSpa being bought out and chloroformed by a larger pharmaceutical firm that will then continue to profit from a more lucrative, though not necessarily more efficacious, treatment of its own.

             Weaknesses. Currently, the list of treatments considered suitable for hyperbaric treatment is a rather short one. Further, there are some medical conditions for which HBOT is clearly counter-indicated. Specifically, patients who suffer from pneumothorax or have a past history of air embolism are poor candidates for HBOT because the treatment itself could cause these serious complications under certain conditions.