Kim Anderson

AHTC Summer Institute Reflection Paper

A History of Medicine: Resuscitation

The Boston Chronicle 18 Apr. 1768: 1. Vol. 1: No. 19.

"Science: For the Farmer's Museum. Medical Resuscitation." Farmer's Mufeum or Lay Preacher's Gazette 18 Apr. 1799: 1. Walpole, New Hampshire, Vol. VII: No. 314.

Arthur Baer once said, “It was as helpful as throwing a drowning man both ends of the rope.” To the reader in the 20^th century, Arthur Baer could have been referring to the standard practice of resuscitation described first in The Boston Chronicle, 1768, and then in the Farmer’s Mufeum, 1799. How much has medicine changed since the late 18^th century? In this paper I will analyze two newspaper articles, relate the articles to the Summer Institute, and then suggest ways to use the items in the classroom.

The first article was found in a 1768 issue of The Boston Chronicle and outlines the proper steps for the resuscitation of persons, “…who, have been drowned, [or] lain under water from one to six hours…” The following is a summary of instructions:

1. Strip off cloths, rub with a course cloth…apply a dry hot bath of ashes or salt or cover up in a hot dunghill.
2. Let a strong healthy person, “force his own breath with tobacco smoke into the drowned person’s lungs by pipe or quill.”
3. Let 10-20 ounces of blood from jugular vein.
4. Some tobacco smoke should be thrown into the intestines.

I think the article was written to help inform people about what to do if someone drowns. The document was transcribed by the author from a previous publication by Dr. Tiffot. The article begins with an explanation of why it is included in the paper, “As your paper is designed to benefit mankind, the inserting the following from Dr. Tiffot, I apprehend will serve the same design in a very alarming case.” The document is front page news, which tells me that The Boston Globe was committed to informing the public, not just about items of business or politics, but also about health and safety information. The article also tells me modern medicine was still in its infancy. One question I would pose to Dr. Tiffot: How did you decide on this course of action for treatment of a drowned person? Have you performed experiments to back up your recommendations?

The second article comes from a 1799 issue of the Farmer’s Mufeum and outlines the newest standard practice in resuscitation. The Plan of Resuscitation recommended by the Royal Humane Society is summarized in the following steps:

Immediately send someone for medical assistance and then…

1. Move the body, with head raised, to the nearest house.
2. Dry the boy and clean the mouth and nostrils
3. Young persons should lie between two persons in a hot bed.
4. An adult should be placed near a fire with access to fresh air (it implies that this will be aided by removing curious onlookers).
5. Rub down with flannel sprinkled with spirits and apply a warm pan to back and spine.
6. Inflate lungs with the pipe of a bellows.
7. Gently shock with electricity, right to left, while the lungs are inflated.
8. Summon the breath with hot spirit. Warm bath & hot bricks applied to hands and soles of feet.
9. Repeat four to six hours.
   

I think the article was published to dispel misinformation in the general public about the best practice to resuscitate a drowning victim. The statement, “…the mass of the people have very gross and wrong ideas on this [resuscitation] subject…” indicates the author realizes there are errors in ideas about best practice and believes that publishing a clear set of steps will help educate the paper’s readers. It is apparent that medicine is advancing when compared with the previous 1768 article. For example, in the first article maintains resuscitation may be possible for people submerged from one to six hours; however, by 1799, the doctor clearly states resuscitation may be possible only if the victim, “has not have been submerged more that 15-30 minutes.” The article implies that here may still be widespread faith in wives’ tales when people are faced with health issues such as drowning. For example, hanging a person by their heels or rolling them on a log (the author labels both practices barbarous). The questions I have for the article’s author include: How many people read the paper? Do you have any other plans for disseminating this information to either the illiterate or the poor?
     The Summer Institute provided a number of resources, materials and speakers which helped me build my own historical framework to improve my understanding of illness and death in the 19^th century. One of the first resources that came to mind is a book we have in our school’s library (and one that was mentioned during Carol Inskeep’s booktalks on the Constitutional Convention), titled An American Plague: The True & Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy. This book was a great way to ground myself in the time period and think historically about medical practices. The two newspaper articles, though 20 years apart, bring another layer of reality to the grizzly truth of death and dying during the birth of our nation. In addition, Don Owen’s information on Historical Thinking is perfectly matched to the subject of medicine. Students are forced to think about the realities of the late 1700’s and the limitations of medicine in that time. I think these items would be perfect for a DBQ—especially one used to compare and contrast practices then and now. The documentary John Adams has a scene depicting him in France while he is quite ill. The doctor comes and performs a bloodletting, which would be a nice visual for the medical realities of the past.

Finally, I will use these documents in our library to create bulletin boards and book displays on the history of medicine in the United States. I will also collaborate with our 8^th grade social studies teachers on the development of lessons centered around these articles. One way I will know the students are thinking historically about the documents is when they are able to discuss and understand why doctors would recommend various strategies that sound ridiculous to us today. Instead of thinking something is gross, they should be thinking about how and why a doctor would have come to this recommendation in that time period. Hopefully this will lead to discussion about how doctors were able to make such advances in 20 years and comparisons between the 1799 recommendations and those recommended today by the University of Washington School of Medicine (http://depts.washington.edu/learncpr/).

In conclusion, I have discussed two different articles outlining best practice for resuscitation of a drowned victim, I have discussed how my experiences at the Summer Institute have stimulated ideas and thinking related to medicine in the 18^th century, and I discussed plans for using what I have learned in the library and with classroom teachers. After reading the two articles and learning more about medicine in the late 1700’s I am not surprised to learn Benjamin Franklin once said, “He’s the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most medicines.” Those were tough times.

Recommended reading:
Dendy, Leslie, and Mel Boring. Guinea Pig Scientists: Bold Self-Experimenters in
Science and Medicine. New York: Henry Holt, 2005.

Haller, John S. American Medicine in Transition, 1840-1910. University of Illinois
Press: Urbana, 1981.

Murphy, Jim. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever
Epidemic of 1793. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. New York: Norton, 2003.

Starr, Paul. The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign
Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry. New York: Basic Books, 1984.

Wilbur, C. Keith. Revolutionary Medicine. New York: Globe, 1997.

Images

United States National Library of Medicine: History of Medicine
http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/gw_44_3/chameleon?skin=nlm&lng=en

Online Resource List
Internet Public Library: History of Medicine

http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hea30.00.00/