December 3 – First Mouth-to-Mouth Rescue Breathing

nPostednon December 3, 2014

nItnapparently took thousands of years for anyone to try this low-technmedical procedure:

nIfnsomeone isn’t breathing, and to all appearances is dying or dead,nbreathe into the person’s mouth – in other words, breathe FOR himnor her – in an attempt to revive him or her.

Asnfar as we know, even though mouth-to-mouth resuscitation doesn’tndemand a modern understanding of biology, and even though it doesn’tnrequire electronic devices, electricity, or any technology at all,nthe procedure was never used until this date in 1732. The innovationnwas tried by a Scottish doctor named William Tossach. His patient,nJames Blair, was rescued from a fire in a coal mine. Tossach saidnthat Blair had no pulse, no breath, and no heartbeat. When the doctornblew into Blair’s mouth as strongly as he could, twice, Blair’s heartnbegan to beat again, and Tossach was able to write up his experimentnwith rescue breathing as a success!

It’s sad that a procedure that actually
saves people, like rescue breathing,
was considered dangerous, while “patent
medicines” and blood letting
were still being practiced!

nSadly,napparently the practice did not catch on as quickly or fully as onenmight hope. A series of doctors were able to publicize Tossach’snprocedure, and it was used with increasing frequency as from then1700s until the early 1800s, mostly to revive drowning victims.

nHowever, in 1812 a British medical society published a report thatn“respired air” (the stuff you and I breathe out) is not pure andnis a great risk for the patient.

nIncannot believe that logic! I would answer to that: Hey, the patientnisn’t breathing! S/he is dead!! How much worse off can s/he be fromngetting “impure” air??? What’s worse for one’s health than death????

Itntook until the 1950s for two American doctors (Dr. James Elam and Dr.nPeter Safar) to rediscover the lifesaving technique. Since then, CPRn(cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) has added additional elements tonrescue breathing. Many people get CPR training, and these days aboutn92 THOUSAND people are saved EVERY YEAR in the U.S. alone! And evennmore people could be saved if more of us got and used CPR training!

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Saving 92,000 people a year is like saving the
entire city of Santa Barbara – each and every year!

nEvennkids sometimes need CPR and rescue breathing, and even kids can givenCPR and rescue breathing. Here is a primer on rescuenbreathing, and here are some stories about how ordinary peoplenhave used CPR to save lives.

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