RESUSCITATION OF THE STOPPED HEART BY INTRACARDIAL THERAPY

Abstract

Cardiac standstill, regardless of the sequential development of the etiologic factors responsible for its occurrence, constitutes a clinical problem of no little magnitude so far as a favorable outcome in any individual case is predicated on the initiation of therapeutic measures leading to prompt restoration of the automatic activity of the heart. The more or less dramatic events attending cardiac arrest, whether the scene be laid in a well appointed hospital operating amphitheater, a doctor's consulting room or in less favorable circumstances, are always associated with ill defined attempts to do something to restore cardiac function. In the brief interval before complete surrender to death has taken place and before utter helplessness has seized those administering to the dying person, many random and badly executed procedures are invoked with the last minute hope of resuscitating the stopped heart. In a previous communication¹I attempted to review the methods currently