Medical and Industrial Equipment Limited (M&IE) began in 1938 at 10-12 New Cavendish Street, London, W1, just two blocks away from Harley Street, the world renowned centre for medical excellence. At this address Mr Henry Talley and his brother Fred formed the company to make instruments and develop equipment for anaesthesia. During the years of the Second World War MIE were making general anaesthesia machines under contract to the Government, in the basement of the premises at New Cavendish Street, which was beneath what was then a large block of flats. The ground floor was unusable for a long period as a result of the blast from a near-miss bomb!
After repairs had been carried out the new MIE showroom became one of the two meeting places in London for the Doctors now beginning to specialise in the new discipline of Anaesthesia. Doctors, such as Sir Ivan Magill, Sir Robert Macintosh and Dr Vernon Hall were frequent visitors. The Talley Brothers were building up a worthwhile reputation in the London area and at the same time developing the new ideas put forward by the Doctors who were keenly interested in the future of Anaesthesia. One of these ideas was the requirement by the Dental Profession, in particular for a machine, which gave an Oxygen Nitrous mixture. The co-operation initiated in those days between Anaesthetists and Industry is still evident today. MIE built its reputation on its willingness to make “specials” and assist with experimentation.
Wing Commander R Soper RAF (later Air Commodore) came to MIE in 1953 with an oxygen facemask developed by the Royal Aircraft Establishment for the first successful British Everest expedition, and requested that it be modified for anaesthesia purposes. This was done, and the mask was named “Everseal”. It has been a universal success ever since; thousands and thousands have been sold during the following years as an anaesthetic mask. One major contract was to the Bird Corporation of California for use with their world-renowned respirators.
As the name of MIE spread and the business grew, the manufacturing and administration side were moved to workshops in North West London near to Euston Station. These premises were initially shared with a carpet fitting and leather goods business, however, some three or four years later MIE had acquired the whole premises and also set up a branch office and showroom in Manchester; started exporting to countries whose Doctors had trained in the UK, and even ventured into the surgical instrument business.
MIE was always in the forefront, developing equipment to meet the current anaesthesia techniques being evolved by the profession, equipment such as the Aintree patient lung ventilator – one of the first ventilators. Then came the EMOTRIL Analgesia inhaler for obstetrical use, using Trichloroethylene (Trilene) instead of gas, developed by MIE in conjunction with the Nuffield Department of Anaesthesia in Oxford. The Central Midwives Board for a safe self-administering inhaler laid down the specification and of the five manufacturers submitting machines for approval, only two received the unreserved acclaim of the CMB in 1949. Based on the principles of the Emotril, MIE later brought out a series of temperature compensated Vaporisers in the 60’s for fitting to general anaesthetic machines; giving a more accurate control in anaesthesia, which finally led to the last vaporisers, developed in the 80’s the Vapamasta range.
Other products developed and manufactured within the Group were infant resuscitation trolleys (Johnson Cot) for the newborn; suction machines; Magill and Macintosh laryngoscopes; carbon dioxide absorbers, soda lime granules for removing carbon dioxide from breathing systems, which was made by MIE for many years at the AD Chemicals Factory at Weybridge, before being moved to other plants.
Another unique product is MIE’s range of lightweight breathing assembly connectors, known as Superlite in 1971. For many years this was the leading brand for reusable breathing connectors and valves. These were also supplied to and fitted by many other anaesthetic equipment manufacturers. Superlite is made of Polycarbonate moulded over stainless steel inserts, giving tapered metal to metal contact with mating parts and are thus very tight and strong.
During the mid 1950’s MIE became part of Amalgamated Dental Industries, and in 1966 the company moved, this time into the newly renovated section of Broadwick Street, London, the London offices of Amalgamated Dental. In 1976 MIE was sold with Amalgamated Dental to DentSply Inc of America and in 1977 the whole of MIE transferred to a new factory on the Sowton Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Exeter. Devon. In 1992 MIE joined with Swedish company Engstrom (Dr Engstrom was known for the Engstrom Ventilator which had an accelerating flowrate delivering a different type of gas flow to the patient from existing ventilators) to become Engstrom MIE, and later in 1994 the acquisition by Instrumentarium Healthcare Group (Finland) took place.
This led to the next change when in January 1995; MIE became part of the medical division of Vickers Plc, who were known for being the largest suppliers of patient monitoring equipment in the UK at that time. At this point the name changed to Medical Industrial Equipment, as we dropped the use of the ‘and’, and was known as mie, and used this as our trademark. In 1997 MIE was acquired by Hillenbrand Industries and became a subsidiary of Hill-Rom (Europe).
In December 1999 after massive redundancies were made (half of the employees) the manufacturing and offices were moved to a new factory in Exmouth. Alas it was to finally close its doors in July 2000 when Hill-Rom decided to “Exit from Anaesthesia”.
