Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1881 — How to Resuscitating From Drownding. [ARTICLE]

How to Resuscitating From Drownding.

The frequency of accidents should induce evety person whether old or young 1 to learn the best means known to physicians for resuscitating? those who are taken from the watef Just how long a person can lay In the water and not be only asphyxiated but actually dead varies, as observation proves. Prompt, intelligent and persevering means have foiled to restore when they have been in the water three minutes; the same means are successful when ten or more minutes, have passed. The symptoms are the same in nearly all—respiration slow, labored or absent f r minutes, pulseless, sometimes heart sounds are inaudible and yet they are not apparently dead, as efforts to resuscitate often prove. The following rules, laid down by Marshall Hau, the great Scotch philanthrophist and physician, are generally used by the faculty, and, aa they are so easily understood and practiced, are both in this country and Europe placarded by boards of health in cities, around docks and vessels, and many a person has been saved by them. Physicians (why not everyone?) carry them in their note books and read them to nurses engaged in efforts to restore the asphiyxatea whether from drownding, gas used for illuminating purposes, from charcoal, or other com. or that found in deep wells or mines known as firedamp. 1. Treat the patient instantly on the spot, in the open air. freely exposing the face, neck and chest to the breeze, except in severe weather. .2. In order to clear the throat, place the patient gently on the face, with one wrist under the forehead, that all fluid, and the tongue itself, may fall and leave the entrance into the windpipe free. 3. To excite respiration, turn the patient slightly on its side, and apply some irritating or stimulating agent to the nostrils, as veratrine, dilute ammonia, etc. x . 4. Make the face warm by brisk friction ; then dash cold water upon it. 5. If not successful, lose no time, but to imitate respiration, place the patient on his face, turn the body gently but completely on the side ana a little beyond; Repeat this movement deliberately and perseveringly, fifteen times only in a minute. When the patient lies on the thorax, this cavity is expressed by the weight of the body and expiration takes place. When he is turned on the side this pressure is removed and inspiration occurs. 6. When the prone position is resumed, make a uniform and sufficient pressure along the spine, removing the pressure immediately, before rotation on the side. (The pressure augments the expiration the rotation commences inspiration.) Continue these measures.

7. Bub the limbs upward, with firm pressure and with energy, (The object being to rid the return ot venous blood to the heart.) 8. Substitute for the patient’s wet clothing, if possible, such other clothing as can be instantly procured, each bystander supplying a coat or cloak, etc. Meantime, and from time to time, to excite expiration, let the surface of the body be slapped briskly with the hand. 9. Rub the body briskly until it is dry and warm, then dash cold' water upon it and repeat the rubbing. Avoid the Immediate removal of the patient, as it involves a dangerous loss of time; also the use of bellows or any forcing instrument; also the warm bath and all rough treatment.