The Story of Blood for Shock Resuscitation: How the Pendulum Swings.

Whole blood transfusion (WBT) began in 1667 as a treatment for mental illness, with predictably poor results. Its therapeutic utility and widespread use were initially limited by deficiencies in transfusion science and antisepsis. James Blundell, a British obstetrician, was recognized for the first allotransfusion in 1825. However, WBT did not become safe and therapeutic until the early 20th century, with the advent of reliable equipment, sterilization, and blood typing. The discovery of citrate preservation in World War I allowed a separation of donor from recipient and introduced the practice of blood banking. During World War II, Elliott and Strumia were the first to separate whole blood into blood component therapy (BCT), producing dried plasma as a resuscitative product for "traumatic shock." During the 1970s, infectious disease, blood fractionation, and financial opportunities further drove the change from WBT to BCT, with few supporting data. Following a period of high-volume crystalloid and BCT resuscitation well into the early 2000s, measures to avoid the resulting iatrogenic resuscitation injury were developed under the concept of damage control resuscitation. Modern transfusion strategies for hemorrhagic shock target balanced BCT to reapproximate whole blood. Contemporary research has expanded the role of WBT to therapy for the acute coagulopathy of trauma and the damaged endothelium. Many US trauma centers are now using WBT as a front-line treatment in tandem with BCT for patients suffering hemorrhagic shock. Looking ahead, it is likely that WBT will once again be the resuscitative fluid of choice for patients in hemorrhagic shock.

A Short History of Helping Babies Breathe: Why and How, Then and Now.

Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) changed global education in neonatal resuscitation. Although rooted in the technical and educational expertise underpinning the American Academy of Pediatrics' Neonatal Resuscitation Program, a series of global collaborations and pivotal encounters shaped the program differently. An innovative neonatal simulator, graphic learning materials, and content tailored to address the major causes of neonatal death in low- and middle-income countries empowered providers to take action to help infants in their facilities. Strategic dissemination and implementation through a Global Development Alliance spread the program rapidly, but perhaps the greatest factor in its success was the enthusiasm of participants who experienced the power of being able to improve the outcome of babies. Collaboration continued with frontline users, implementing organizations, researchers, and global health leaders to improve the effectiveness of the program. The second edition of HBB not only incorporated new science but also the accumulated understanding of how to help providers retain and build skills and use quality improvement techniques. Although the implementation of HBB has resulted in significant decreases in fresh stillbirth and early neonatal mortality, the goal of having a skilled and equipped provider at every birth remains to be achieved. Continued collaboration and the leadership of empowered health care providers within their own countries will bring the world closer to this goal.

Blowing Smoke Up Your Arse: Drowning, Resuscitation, and Public Health in Eighteenth-Century Venice.

This article examines resuscitation practices in the second half of the eighteenth century, especially the new use of tobacco smoke enema machines on people who had been extracted from water with no signs of life. Drownings accounted for a small number and proportion of urban deaths, yet governments promoted resuscitation techniques at considerable expense in order to prevent such deaths. The visibility of drowning in religious, urban, and civic life encouraged engagement with new approaches. Analyzing the deployment of resuscitation practices illuminates three key features of premodern public health interventions: the focus of governments on the logistics of these interventions, the participation of physicians and surgeons at all levels of the professional hierarchy, and the importance of communication.

Real or Fake? New Light on the Paracelsian De natura rerum.

So far it has never been clearly decided whether the treatise De natura rerum constitutes an authentic work by the physician and natural philosopher Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493/94-1541) This article outlines the manuscript and printing traditions of De natura rerum, in which a recently discovered manuscript from 1571 is identified as the earliest source. The watermarks of this manuscript refer to the Tyrolean Inn Valley, where great alchemical expertise was available due to silver mining. A detailed examination of the content and style of the preface and the nine chapters indicates the involvement of at least three different authors. Some of these parts are definitely forgeries, while others cannot be judged with certainty as to their authenticity. On the other hand, three chapters, those on death, resuscitation and the signature of natural things, are most likely real writings of Paracelsus.

An analysis of the vascular injuries and attempted resuscitation surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr was the most prominent civil rights leader in the United States in the 1960s. He was shot by an assassin in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. After the shooting he was taken to a local hospital where he had an unsuccessful resuscitation for a right subclavian artery transection. Despite the fact that the circumstances around the assassination have been frequently reported and reviewed in the past 50 years, the specific vascular care of the traumatic injury has not been analyzed. This paper reviews the medical aspects of the King assassination and the management of his subclavian injury.

George Washington Frost Mellen and Resuscitation with Nitrous Oxide in 1847.

In The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of 1847 (later to be called The New England Journal of Medicine), Boston chemist George Washington Frost Mellen claimed that inhaled nitrous oxide gas supports human life in the manner of oxygen gas, and he proposed the use of nitrous oxide in resuscitation from drowning and from carbon monoxide poisoning. The claim was reprinted in at least one dental journal and was long cited as justification for the use of 100% nitrous oxide for inhaled anesthesia. Advocates included anesthesia pioneer and painless dentist Gardner Quincy Colton. Though misguided as to nitrous oxide, Mellen was a prominent member of the Boston community for the abolition of slavery.

The humane society movement and the transnational exchange of medical knowledge in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Humane societies emerged in considerable numbers throughout the transatlantic world in the late eighteenth century. These charities promoted innovative methods for resuscitating the apparently drowned, drawing upon advances in the medical understanding of resuscitation and scientific innovations in life-saving techniques. Humane societies constituted a transnational philanthropic movement, in that member societies corresponded with each other and drew upon the work of fellow life-saving charities. Medical gentlemen, especially physicians and surgeons, were at the forefront of this movement and contributed greatly to the foundation of these societies, as well as to the vibrant transnational discourse on resuscitation techniques. This paper will explore the proliferation of humane societies as constituting a transnational movement of voluntary organisations, and will pay particular attention to British and Irish life-saving charities in the early decades of this movement (1770-c. 1820).

Response of the Australian Medical Services to restoration of mobile warfare on the Western Front in 1918 (part II).

On 4 July 1918, at the Battle of Hamel, the Australian Medical Services used a Field Ambulance Resuscitation Team for the first time, delivering life-saving blood transfusion and early definitive surgery to badly wounded soldiers very soon after their wounds had been inflicted. During the closing months of the war, many lives and limbs were saved by early resuscitation and effective surgery, an achievement that stands out in marked contrast to the situation in 1914, when inadequate resuscitation, outdated surgical methods and appalling delays in delivering treatment resulted in great numbers of unnecessary deaths.

Historia del suero salino / Saline solutions in history

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Negovsky y Safar unidos por la ciencia de la reanimación / Negovsky and Safar together for science of resuscitation

OBJECTIVE: This article characterize the contributions of Peter Safar and Vladimir Negovsky to the field of resuscitation and critical medicine during the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st century with the purpouse to correlate the discoveries and developments of each one, with their life stories and with the historical moments throughout the 20th century. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A review of literature on the subject was conducted, in which primary and secondary sources on the life and scientific and academic production of Vladimir Negovsky and Peter Safar were searched in online databases, in English as well as Spanish. RESULTS: Peter Safar and Vladimir Negovsky, although they had two very different life histories and developed their academic contributions in opposite political contexts, this did not prevent each of them from laying the foundations of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, both in the concepts and the physiopathological understanding of the damage processes, as well as the procedures to act in a timely manner, minimizing them. They also contributed to critical medicine, and to the formation of intensive care units. This work aims to show how a field of knowledge is based on collective work, as the discovery does not depend on a single character, but on a social, historical process, which is also based on the knowledge and elements developed by others.

OBJETIVO: Con este artículo se caracterizan los aportes de Peter Safar y Vladimir Negovsky en el campo de la reanimatología y de la medicina crítica durante el siglo XX y albores del siglo XXI, y se correlacionan sus investigaciones y descubrimientos con sus historias de vida y momentos compartidos. MATERIALES Y MÉTODOS: Se realizó una revisión de literatura sobre el tema, mediante la búsqueda de fuentes primarias y secundarias sobre la vida y producción científica y académica de Vladimir Negovsky y Peter Safar, en bases de datos en línea, en inglés y en español. RESULTADOS: Peter Safar y Vladimir Negovsky, pese a tener dos historias de vida muy distintas y desarrollar sus aportes académicos en contextos políticos diferentes, coincidieron en un campo de la ciencia que no les impidió que cada uno sentara las bases de la reanimación cardio cerebro pulmonar, tanto en los conceptos y en la comprensión fisiopatológica de los procesos de lesión, como en los procedimientos para prevenir la muerte y minimizar los efectos del proceso isquemia/reperfusión. Así mismo, concibieron y desarrollaron las unidades de medicina crítica y cuidado intensivo, el sistema integral para el transporte de los pacientes y el campo vasto en la formación de posgrados como anestesiología y medicina crítica. CONCLUSIÓN: Definitivamente la ciencia no tiene fronteras políticas y se fundamenta en el trabajo colectivo. Estos dos personajes vivieron tiempos políticos y sociales adversos, unieron lazos de amistad y compartieron experiencias para producir cambios históricos en la ciencia de la reanimación conocida como Reanimatología.

Whole Blood for Resuscitation in Adult Civilian Trauma in 2017: A Narrative Review.

After a hiatus of several decades, the concept of cold whole blood (WB) is being reintroduced into acute clinical trauma care in the United States. Initial implementation experience and data grew from military medical applications, followed by more recent development and data acquisition in civilian institutions. Anesthesiologists, especially those who work in acute trauma facilities, are likely to be presented with patients either receiving WB from the emergency department or may have WB as a therapeutic option in massive transfusion situations. In this focused review, we briefly discuss the historical concept of WB and describe the characteristics of WB, including storage, blood group compatibility, and theoretical hemolytic risks. We summarize relevant recent retrospective military and preliminary civilian efficacy as well as safety data related to WB transfusion, and describe our experience with the initial implementation of WB transfusion at our level 1 trauma hospital. Suggestions and collective published experience from other centers as well as ours may be useful to those investigating such a program. The role of WB as a significant therapeutic option in civilian trauma awaits further prospective validation.