Evening star., 1927-10-28
Personl Health Service
How to Restore Breathing.
ny WILLIAM BRADY, NJ. d.

The foolish season has closed but
you never can tell. The first person
l ever resuscitated was a child about
years old. The child had been play
ing with other children on the ice of
an ice pond. Somehow he slipped
into a hole and sank. The other chill
dren ran across the pond and told the
men harvesting ice there about the
boy In the water. The men hurried
to the hole, but found only the boys
stocking cap floating on the surface.
The water was too murky to see be-
meath the surface, so they took long
pole with hook on the end and fished
around until they brought the child
up. He was apparently dead. They
ran with him to shanty near the
pond and some one telephoned for the
doctor.
1t must have been Ave minutes be.
fore I arrived. Meanwhile the well
meaning but totally unprepared peo-
pie milling about had devoted their
energies mainly to a fruitless search
for a barrel, while some women of
the neighborhood, willing enough but
utterly useless, rubbed the child's
wrists and brought hot stove lids and
the like. l did what any intelligent
6-year-old child ought to be prepared
to do-applied Schaefer's prone pres
sure resuscitation. 1t Is so simple
and so vital that no faithful parent
should dare to go to bed tonight un-
prepared to render this first aid in
any emergency.
While l was applying the treatment
the chlid's mother, summoned to the
scene, stood dazed and shocked,
scarcely comprehending what was
going on. And after the boy had re.
covered she probably never knew any
more about it-at least 1 never again
saw either the boy or his mother. No
mention of the matter appeared In
the papers. 1t wasn't spectacular.
Schaefer's prone pressure respiration
is not of any commercial interest.
1t doesn't even call for pumping the
arms" Physicians have discarded
that manipulation as inefficient and
impractical. Had used wonderful
machine in the resuscitation of this
boy the story would have been her.
aided far and wide. / used just q.
pair of ordinary hands-hands exactly
like yours-and as much intelligence
as any normal 6-year-old child might
apply. And such humdrum isn't
news. ~
You viii understand, I hope, that
am not bemoaning the fact that l won
no medals for tanning this spark of
life while 1t still smouldered. am
simply trying to explain why
Schaefer's manual method of artif-
cial respiration is overlooked and
ignored while inferior methods. in.
volving the use Of machines or appa-
nal PnA
egregiously overrated in the mind of
the unsophisticated public.
It Is questionable whether a novice
can learn the Schaefer method from
even Schaefer's own description,
though a testimonial letter / pub.
lished here recently from a mother
who had resuscitated her 2-year-old
boy from drowning gave me great
happiness, for she declared she had
read the description Of the method in
my column only the day before the
accident.
Prone Pressure ResuscitatiOn.
ut consists in laying the subject in
the prone posture (Which means on
the belly, not on the back, as our best
novelists imagine), preferably on the
ground, with thick folded garment
underneath the chest and epigastrium
(which means the stomach of lay
parlance). The operator puts himself
athwart or at the side of the subject,
facing his head, and places his hands
on each side over the lower part of
the back lowest ribs). He then slowly
throws the weight Of his body for
ward to bear upon his own arms and
thus presses upon the thorax (which
means trunk. chest) of the subject
and forces air out of the lungs. This
being effected, he gradually relaxes
the pressure by bringing his own body
up again to a more erect position, but