Citation

Philippe C, Saudamini D, Djillali A. Resuscitation 2019; 142: 14-15.

Affiliation

UFR of Health Sciences (UVSQ), 2 avenue de la Source de la Bièvre, 78180 Montigny-Le-Bretonneux, France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.resuscitation.2019.06.285

PMID

31283950

Abstract

Faced with drowning in the 18th century, physicians and laymen were not deprived of choices: innumerable resuscitation methods of variable efficiency existed (Table 1). One method, however, surpasses all the others: the anal insufflation of tobacco smoke. Propagated by scholars like the physicist and naturalist Réaumur, it was intended as a means against the burial of individuals falsely diagnosed as dead: «But what is best, perhaps, is to blow the smoke of a pipe into the intestines. One of our Academicians has witnessed the swift and happy effect of this smoke on a drowned man. A broken pipe may supply the pipe or blow-torch by which the smoke that is drawn from the whole pipe will be blown into the body». The unusual method is somewhat comparable to legendary and mythical stories of undertakers inserting silver needles in the nail bed of the big toe before any burial ...

Language: en