Millions of Americans are due to learn a new method of artificial respiration. The Army, Navy and Air Force, the American Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and the A.M.A. have all agreed to abandon the "Schafer prone-pressure" method which has been in use for two generations. Instead, they will teach first-aid workers the "back-pressure, arm-lift" method.
There was nothing wrong with the Schafer method as far as it went. But a Danish instructor in physical fitness, Holger Nielsen, argued that its rhythmic pressure on the lower ribs of the back caused the lungs to take up only the same...