Closed-Chest Cardiac Massage for Circulatory Arrest

Recently there has been widespread enthusiasm concerning efforts to restore life to those individuals who have apparently died suddenly and unexpectedly. This state has largely come about as a result of four major medical accomplishments: (1) the development of a simple nonsurgical technique (closed-chest cardiac massage) for maintaining the circulation1; (2) the demonstration that adequate ventilation can be accomplished with mouth-to-mouth or mouth-to-nose breathing2; (3) the introduction of external defibrillation to abolish ventricular fibrillation1,3; and (4) the innovation of cardiac pacing by an extracardiac or intracardiac artificial pacemaker.4-6 The present report deals with the analysis of the initial 100 consecutive cases of circulatory arrest in which the closed-chest cardiac massage technique was utilized at Michael Reese Hospital from July, 1961, to March, 1963. All meaningful resuscitative efforts were included regardless of whether or not the patient was potentially salvageable. All cases were proved to be circulatory