The History of Resuscitation as it Affects Lifeboat Medicine

Extract

Individual cultures, as shown in folklore, have practiced some form of resuscitation. For instance the Celts traditionally carried a large cauldron or cooking pot with them into battle. This was not, as might be supposed, to cook their enemies but in which to throw the heroes slain in battle, who then re-emerged whole to continue fighting. The well known practice of the inhabitants of the West Indies in blowing tobacco smoke per rectum as a means of revival may well have had its origins in distant mythology. In addition to the observed, better preservation of the lower intestines after death, and the obvious irritant and stimulative effects of the apparatus and fumes towards an involuntary breath, there may well have been a more philosophical concept of the reintroduction of the spirit—the anima.