Editorial: Standards for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and emergency cardiac care.

Abstract

WITH this issue,The Journalpublishes a supplement that represents a landmark document. It is entitled Standards for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiac Care . It seems only yesterday in the long history of medicine that resuscitative efforts included such measures as rolling a victim over a barrel and rectal insufflation of smoke. Changes posed by World War II and research that continued into the 1950s culminated in 1966 with the First National Conference on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) that was sponsored jointly by the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council and the American Heart Association. The Journalwas pleased to publish the standards issued from that conference that became the law of the medical world in the field of CPR. The science and art continued to develop rapidly during the ensuing years. As a result of experimental and clinical observations, techniques for artificial ventilation and cardiac compression have evolved to a