The story of artificial ventilation

Abstract

In 1543, Vesalius found that lung collapse soon caused the heart to stop, but Hooke showed in 1667, that blowing air down the windpipe and out through punctures in the lungs sustained life. In 1744, Tossach reported saving a suffocated miner with expired air (mouth-to-mouth) resuscitation (EAR). Between the 1850s and the 1940s there were over 70 descriptions of diverse, rarely successful manual methods of artificial ventilation. A few methods were effective, including the Swedish Holger Nielson technique (external chest compression and expansion) that came to be recommended. In 1954, Elam showed that individuals taught to maintain an open airway in a patient without a tracheal tube could maintain normal levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide with EAR. In 1958-9, Safar showed that lay personnel could open the airway by thrusting the jaw forwards and tilting the head backwards. Rescue organizations slowly adopted the new techniques.