A scavenger system is a medical device used in hospitals. It is used to gather gas or aerosolized medication after it is exhaled from the patient or left the area of the patient. Often used to collect anesthesia, it can also be used to collect any type of gas or aerosolized medicine that is intended only for the patient and should not be breathed in by any other medical personnel.
The use of scavenger systems in operating rooms is to prevent the anesthesia from leaking away from the patient or anesthesia system and flooding the operating room. When using the aerosolized medicine Ribavirin, the scavenger system prevents the spread of it away from the patient area; Ribavirin can have serious side effects and people may build up immunity to it quickly, hence the use of the scavenger system.
Famous quotes containing the words scavenger and/or system:
“Little scavenger away,
touch not the door,
beat not the portal down.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.”
—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. “Strong and Sensitive Cats,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1994)