104 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1745. 



with air ; by Mr. William Tossack, surgeon in Alloa ;" printed in part 2, p. 

 605, vol. V. of the Medical Essays, published by a society of gentlemen at Edin- 

 burgh ; an abstract of which will be sufficient in this place. 



A person suffocated by the nauseous steam arising from coals set on fire in the 

 pit, fell down as dead; he lay in the pit between half an hour and three quarters, 

 and was then dragged up ; his eyes staring and open, his mouth gaping wide, 

 his skin cold ; not the least pulse in either heart or arteries, and not the least 

 breathing to be observed. 



In these circumstahces, the surgeon, who relates the affair, applied his mouth 

 close to the patient's, and, by blowing strongly, holding the nostrils at the same 

 time, raised his chest fully by his breath. The surgeon immediately felt 6 or 7 

 very quick beats of the heart ; the thorax continued to play, and the pulse was 

 soon after felt in the arteries. He then opened a vein in his arm ; which, after 

 giving a small jet, sent out the blood in drops only for a quarter of an hour, and 

 then he bled freely. In the mean time he caused him to be pulled, pushed, and 

 rubbed, as much as he could. In one hour the patient began to come to him- 

 self; within 4 hours he walked home ; and in as many days returned to his work. 



Hence it naturally appears how much ought to be attributed to the sagacity of 

 the surgeon in the recovery of this person. Anatomists have long known, that 

 an artificial inflation of the lungs of a dead or dying animal, will put the heart in 

 motion, and continue it so for some time ; yet this is the first instance he re- 

 membered to have met with, wherein the experiment was applied to the happy 

 purpose of rescuing life from such imminent danger. 



Bleeding has hitherto been almost the only resource on these occasions: if this 

 did not succeed, the patient was given up. By bleeding, it was proposed to 

 give vent to the stagnating blood in the vein, in order to make way for that in 

 the arteries a tergo, that the resistance of the heart being thus diminished, this 

 muscle might again be put in motion. 



But in too many instances, we are every day informed, that this operation will 

 not succeed, though the aperture is made with ever so much skill ; nor is it 

 likely that it should, when the blood has lost considerably of its fluidity, the 

 motion of the heart, and the contractile force of the solids, are at an end. And 

 chafing, rubbing, pulling, and the application of stimulants, are too often as inef- 

 fectual as bleeding. 



The method of distending the lungs of persons, dead in appearance, having 

 been tried with such success in one instance, gives just reason to expect, that it 

 may be useful to others. Hence it may be a proper inquiry, in what cases, and 

 under what circumstances, there may be a prospect of applying it with success ? 



It will at once be granted, that when the juices are corrupted, where they are 

 reiuj^red unfit for circulation by diseases, where tiiey are exhausted, or where 



