Medicine: Push-Pull

The aim of artificial respiration is to force air into and out of the lungs of someone who has stopped breathing. The Schaefer prone pressure method, which first-aiders know best, does the trick by forcing the air out of the lungs in rhythmic thrusts and relying on the body's elasticity to suck it back in again. A later method, developed in 1948 by Inventor John H. Emerson, operates on an opposite principle. Emerson's idea is to lift the patient's hips off the ground at regular intervals, thus lowering his diaphragm and making him breathe in. Exhalation follows naturally when the hips...

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