First aid manual.

  • Great Britain. Civil Defence Department
Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First aid manual. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    206/212 page 178
    minute. If the patient’s shoulder is dislocated the raising should be done at the armpits. If necessary, the patient’s arms can be extended outwards or downwards along his sides, as for very small children (see instruction (11)). Rate : 12 times a minute. (11) For children over 4 years of age, or women of slight build, the pressure must be very light (about 12 to 14 Ibs.). This is done by pressing the shoulder blades with the tips of the fingers. Rate: 12 times a minute. (12) For children under 4 years of age and babies, the pressure must be even lighter (about 2 to 4 lbs.) ; this is obtained by pressure on the shoulders with the thumbs, followed by slight shoulder lifting. Rate: approximately 15 times a minute, which is the natural rate of respiration for a child. (13) Theafter-treatment of patients is the same as for all other first-aid methods of resuscitation. (b) Schefer’s Method Instructions to Operator (1) Make certain that the air passages are free, loosen all tight clothing, then lay the patient face downward with his head turned to one side and his arms laid forward. (2) Kneel beside or astride the patient’s thighs facing his head and place the palms of your hands on the small of his back, the wrists nearly touching, the thumbs as near as possible to one another, and the fingers fitting into the soft part on either side of the backbone between the ribs and the hip bones. (3) Keeping the arms straight, swing your body slowly forward from the hips until your shoulders are directly above your hands and your weight presses down on the patient’s back. This compresses his belly against the ground and forces the contents of the belly upwards against the diaphragm which is pushed up with a piston-like action, driving air out of the lungs and at the same time stimulating the heart. (N.B.— Do not press too hard; remember that an unconscious person’s. muscles do not resist as they do in a conscious person, so heavy pressure may rupture the liver, or even break one or more ribs.) As soon as you swing forward count slowly, one, two (or to obtain the correct timing of seconds “‘ twenty-one ’”’ “ twenty-two ”’), then :— (4) Without removing the hands, swing your body slowly backward to its original position, thus relaxing the pressure on the back. The contents of the belly now fall back into their normal position, the diaphragm descends and air re-enters the lungs. During this part of the operation count slowly, one, two, three (or “ twenty-one,” ‘* twenty-two,” “ twenty-three ”’). (5) Repeat this forward and backward movement 12 times a minute, without any marked pause (two seconds for pressure, three seconds for relaxation). (See Fig. 54.) (6) When natural breathing reappears, regulate the movements to correspond with it.
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