Description of a simple and efficient method of performing artificial respiration in the human subject especially in cases of drowning / by E. A. Shafer.

  • Sharpey-Schäfer, E. A. (Edward Albert), Sir, 1850-1935.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Description of a simple and efficient method of performing artificial respiration in the human subject especially in cases of drowning / by E. A. Shafer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    DISCUSSION. Tlie President, in introducing Professor Scliafer’s communi- cation, said that it contained the author’s conclusions on the best metliod of carrying on artificial respiration in the apparently drowned. It was the outcome of a paper communicated to the Society a short time ago (1903) by Professor Schafer, on behalf of the Committee on Suspended Animation appointed by the Society, and represented Professor Schiifer’s own individual views. Dr. Bowles said that as he had so recently and so fully discussed the Report of the 1902 Committee, it would be un- necessary to do more than consider the method of resuscitation then proposed by Professor Schiifer as safe, simple, and sufficient. It was true that it was simple, and inasmuch as it was exactly and no more than the first movement in Dr. Bowles’ own method, a copy of which he had sent to Professor Schafer some time prior to the presentation of the Report, he (Dr. Bowles) agreed in principle with Professor Schafer’s method of introducing air into healthy lungs with diaphragm, respiratory muscles, ribs, and cartilages in their natural elastic condition, and air cells and lung tissue resilient and free from fluid or other obstructions ; but in drowning Dr. Schafer had again confirmed what Dr. Bowles had often found and reported during the last forty years in drowned human beings, that all the muscles were in a limp and relaxed condition, and that there was always a danger of the tongue falling back and adding to the asphyxia, and for fluids and mucus to be churned into froth, and so still further adding to the obstruction in the air-passages; the lungs too were sodden, hydrsemic, and inelastic, and the chest walls much less elastic than in the healthy man. It could not be expected, under the conditions existing in the drowned, that pressure on the back alone with the patient in the prone position could effect sufficient gaseous exchange between the outside air and the air in the lungs, as claimed by Professor Schafer. Dr. Bowles had indeed as long ago as 1871 introduced two other movements, which he had found from experience of great use in obtaining real efficiency. 1st. The rolling the patient from the prone position on to the right side to increase chest expansion, and so introduce more air and relieve the heart and circulation from pressure, and at the same time allow the liver to rest, as it were, on the ground.