They are not dead : Restoration by the "heat method," of those drowned, or otherwise suffocated / by T.S. Lambert.

  • Lambert, T. S. (Thomas Scott), 1819-1897
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: They are not dead : Restoration by the "heat method," of those drowned, or otherwise suffocated / by T.S. Lambert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    confirmation in the valuable, but now little read, memoirs of military surgery by the elder Larrey. I quote from the first American edi- tion, Baltimore, 1814. He says (p. 38): «» * * * I will mention by what means I had the happiness of restoring some drowned persons to life. If these means are gener- ally known they may succeed in the hands of every one. As soon as I hear that a person is taken from the water I hasten to his assist- ance, and cause him, in the first place, to be gently laid on a mattress before a large fire; I cut off his clothes immediately, that the body may be exposed to a general treatment. Then, while an assistant makes unremitting and general friction with warm flannels, I exert myself in blowing with a bellows into one nostril, at the same time closing the other; afterward I press the thorax and the abdomen al- ternately ; I then pour into the mouth a little warm spirits; I endeav- or to irritate the inside of the nostrils and the throat with a feather impregnated with ammonia. I administer warm enemata* of a decoc- tion of tobacco [the translator properly warns against the danger of tobacco], and take care to present every part of the body successively to the fire. For six hours f I continue these attempts, which appear suited to restore internal warmth and sensibility. It is obvious that the excitants here used were probably very small factors for good ; how far the artificial respiration, thus em- ployed, was important, cannot be determined; but the prominence that he assigns to heat is very noteworthy. Larrey gives no statis- tics, but asserts that he has had the happiness of restoring some persons. W. San Francisco^ April 8, 1819. These very interesting cases will suffice to show that my views are not the groundless vagaries of crude, undisciplined thoughts and conclusions, but that they are founded in fact. Observe that I am not a partisan, nor bigoted against the use of additional means of restoration, if intelligent persons think them advisable. If strong heat is used pri- • * Injections into the bowels, t Notice the six hours time that Baron Larrey mentions.
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