The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1893-11-11
BREATH IN DEAD MEN
STARTLING RESULTS OF A NEW JER-
SEY DOCTORS EXPERIMENTS.

Patented and Amy Ono Can Make II.
DR.. Edwin De Baum of Passaic. N. j.,
makes the announcement regarding the
time honored statement that Il ma las
died from lack of breatli--that If breath
WIS all he needed he should have lived.
Considering that air is the most plen-
tiful our Of nature. having. as po'it-
zeal economists would say. no value b.
cause of its abundance. one would think
that Dir. De Eaun had made no p~articn-
lar discovery. But there is more in his
statement than is apparent at first.
From time inImemorial physicians
have directed their ingenuity toward an
effective application of this wealth Of
air. but without satisfactory results.
Cases of suspended animation come un-
der their notice every day. Men are
rescued from the water after u hard bat
tie with the waves, their lungs filled with
water, the life's action suspended. In
the majority of instances restoration of
animation cannot be effected. The lungs
may be emptied of the water; the life
giving air, 30 abundant, is at halfd-and
If it could only be forced into the organs
and respiration started life could be re-
newed. Physicians efforts to solve the
problem have been unceasing, but. says
Dir. De Baum, misdirected.
When a man is rescued from the wa
ter, the first thing done is to empty the
lungs of water by rolling him on a bar
rel or lifting him from the ground head
downward. Then he is laid ON his
back, the arms raised to expand the
lungs and n ryhthmic contraction and
expansion of the chest walls effected by
alternate pressure and relaxation. Some
times the forcing process has been kept
up for hours with ultimate success, but
considering the possibilities recognized
in artificial respiration the results have
been far from encouraging.
DR.. De Baum has worked on all entire
iy new line, and the result Of his expert
ments and observation is u method of
internal respiration, which, he claims.
cannot possibly fail. His attention was
first directed to the subject by a case of
suspended animation i'll n newlytborn
child. 1t has been the practice in such
cases to force air into the lungs of the
infant Ey breathing into its month and
then contracting the lungs by pressure
upon the chest. but this has been found
not only intensely disagreeable. but high
ly inefficient.
DIR. De Baum, decided to try d new ex-
pedient. He pissed u small rubber tube
through the nose Of the infant and down
into the throat. Closing the mouth, he
forced air through tho tube from arub-
Der bag, initiating the lungs; then, releas-
ing the pressure from the mouth. found,
as expected, that the elasticity of the
muscles of the chest caused immediate
contraction of the lungs, forming a COM
plete respiration. This was kept up for
As minutes, when natural respiration
had been restored. and a life had been
saved. Since then DR.. De Baum has per-
fected this hastily ~improvised apparatus
and finds that animation may be often
restored within 10 minutes.
The apparatus is as simple as it is in
genious. 1t consists of u long rubber
tube. near one end of which is a piece Of
soft rubber with which to cover the
mouth and nose. At the other end are
two rubber bulbs. After the tube has
been inserted between the teeth, and the
mouth and nose covered slightly, the
lower bulb is compressed, forcing air
into the second bulb, which acts as a res
ervoir. This second bulb is much more
elastic than the other and maintains a
steady pressure Of air through the tube.
1t is covered with loose netting, which
acts as a sort of safety valve against
overpressure. The tube is fitted with a
stopcock thu may be used to lend force
to the first few ~respirations.
A few compressions of the lower bulb
are sufficient to fill the lungs. Then the
pressure on nose and mouth is relaxed,
and the lungs are einptied by the nat
ural elasticity of the muscles of the
chest. This elasticity remains ever aft
er death, and with this instrument it is
quite possible to make a dead man
breathe regularly as long as the applica-
ton continues. In some of the doctors
experiments on dead bodies this simu-
latirn of life has been absolutely star
ting.
1t is not for dead men. however. that
the ''insuflator, as it SCALED. has been
devised, but for men who have been
brought apparently to deaths door by
asplly xiation from gas and water. In the
latter case the lungs must first be emp
tied The apparatus weighs but a few
OunceS II il not patented rs DR. Da