Development of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation, combining rhythmic chest compressions with rescue breathing, emerged from the convergence of two separate lines of research in the United States around 1960: surgeon James Jude, engineer Guy Knickerbocker and engineer William Kouwenhoven at Johns Hopkins University found that repeated compression of the chest could maintain circulation during cardiac arrest, while physician Peter Safar had already demonstrated that mouth-to-mouth ventilation kept a person breathing more effectively than earlier artificial-ventilation methods, such as the arm-lift technique physician Henry Robert Silvester promoted in the 1850s and the method Danish physician Holger Nielsen developed in the early twentieth century. The combined technique was presented publicly on September 16, 1960, and popularized through a widely distributed 1962 training film, The Pulse of Life, after which health organizations began teaching it first to medical professionals and eventually, through the 1970s, to the general public. The technique remains the standard first response to cardiac arrest, and it is now typically taught alongside use of an automated external defibrillator as a way for bystanders to keep a person alive until further emergency care arrives.