History Of CPR

Modern CPR developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The discoverers of mouth-to-mouth ventilation were Drs. James Elam and Peter Safar. Though mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was described in the Bible (mostly performed by midwives to resuscitate newborns) it fell out of practice until it was rediscovered in the 1950s.

In early 1960 Drs. Kouwenhoven, Knickerbocker, and Jude discovered the benefit of chest compression to achieve a small amount of artifical circulation. Later in 1960, mouth-to-mouth and chest compression were combined to form CPR similar to the way it is practiced today.