It sometimes falls to the lot of a life-saver to require assis tance himself. The Rev. C. F. Boyd, Chaplain to the Forces, Colombo, while swimming in the sea at Negombo, Ceylon, became exhausted and was unable to regain the shore ; for more than a quarter of an hour he struggled against the ebb tide, and, failing in his endeavours, called out for help. Company Sergeant-Major Mitchell, Royal Engineers, swam out at great personal risk to his assistance, and supported Mr. Boyd for a considerable time. Both men in all probability would have been drowned had not a fishing-boat gone to their rescue and brought them to shore. Although Mr. Boyd was more than an average swimmer, and had on a previous occasion received the Society's medal for saving life from drowning, he stated that in this case he undoubtedly owed his life to Sergeant Major Mitchell.
The first recorded cases of resuscitating the apparently drowned are those mentioned in the notes to Derham's 'Physico Theology.' They happened at Tronningholm and Oxford about the year x65o, but do not at the time appear to have excited the slightest attention from the medical fraternity. About the middle of the eighteenth century Dr. J. Fothergill addressed the following paper to the Royal Society, in which he asserted that there was a possibility of saving many lives without risking anything.
There are some facts which in themselves are of so great importance to mankind, or which may lead to such useful dis coveries, that it would seem to be the duty of everyone under whose notice they fall to render them as extensively public as it is possible.
The case which gives rise to the following remarks, I apprehend, is of this nature : it is an account of a man, dead in appearance, recovered by distending the lungs with air : by Mr. William Tossack, surgeon in Alloa ; printed in part ii. page 6o5, vol. v. of the ' Medical Essays' ; published by a society of gentlemen at Edinburgh ; an abstract of which will be sufficient in this place. Those who desire an ampler account may consult the article itself.
A person, suffocated by the nauseous steam arising from coals set on fire in the pit, fell down as dead. He lay in the pit between half an hour and three-quarters, and was then dragged up ; his eyes staring and open, his mouth gaping wide, his skin cold, not the least pulse in either heart or arteries, and not the least breathing to be observed.
In these circumstances, the surgeon, who relates the affair, applied his mouth close to the patient's, and, by blowing strongly, holding the nostrils at the same time, raised his chest fully by his breath. The surgeon immediately felt six or seven very quick beats of the heart, the thorax continued to play, and the pulse was soon after felt in the arteries. He then opened a vein in his arm, which, after giving a small jet, sent out the blood in drops only for a quarter of an hour, and then he bled freely. In the meantime, he caused him to be pulled, pushed, and rubbed as much as he could. In one hour the patient began to come to himself; within four hours he walked home, and in as many days returned to his work.
There were many hundred people, some of them of distinction, present at the time.
This is the substance of the account ; from whence it naturally appears how much ought to be attributed to the sagacity of the surgeon in the recovery of this person. Anatomists, it is true, have long known that an artificial inflation of the lungs of a dead or dying animal will put the heart in motion, and continue it so for some time ; yet this is the first instance I remember to have met with wherein the experiment was applied to the happy purpose of rescuing life from such imminent danger.