Push-Pull

The aim of artificial respiration is to force air into and out of the lungs of someone who has stopped breathing. The Schaefer prone pressure method, which first-aiders know best, does the trick by forcing the air out of the lungs in rhythmic thrusts and relying on the body's elasticity to suck it back in again. A later method, developed in 1948 by Inventor John H. Emerson, operates on an opposite principle. Emerson's idea is to lift the patient's hips off the ground at regular intervals, thus lowering his diaphragm and making him breathe in. Exhalation follows naturally when the hips are lowered.

Last week the A.M.A. Journal reported an experiment, directed by Chicago Physiologist A. C. Ivy and partly financed by the Red Cross, which measured the amount of air forced into and out of the lungs of nine volunteers and 109 newly dead bodies by nine methods of artificial respiration. The conclusion: a combination of Schaefer's push and Emerson's pull is best. "Those who now are indoctrinated with the Schaefer prone pressure method," wrote Dr. Ivy's associates, "can double the ventilating efficiency ... by lifting the hips 4 inches 12 times each minute, alternating with the push on the lower part of the chest."

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