You may know CPR as being one of the best tools to buy time to help a person live until emergency personnel can arrive to restart the victim’s heart. But this lifesaving technique is actually not a recent invention, as some people may believe. Below is a short history of CPR.
The 18th and 19th Centuries
In 1740, the Paris Academy of Sciences recommended the use of artificial respiration to drowning victims and in 1767 the Society for the Recovery of Drowned persons was set up to help people deal with sudden and unexpected death. In the 19th century, Dr. H. R. Silvester invented a method of artificial respiration called the “Silvester Method”. A victim was laid on his or her back with the arms above their head (to help open the airways) and another person pressed on the victim’s chest to cause him or her to exhale.
