Thereafter, in the
first half of the 20th century, sudden cardiac death was only
survivable in an operating room or urgent hospital setting,
where direct cardiac massage was possible. Almost 60 years
later, Guy Knickerbocker was researching defibrillation in
dogs and noticed by chance that when he pressed the
electrode paddles firmly on the thorax, a simultaneous rise in
arterial pressure resulted. This led to the rediscovery of
external cardiac massage, today known as chest compression,
which was reintroduced to patient care in 1958 by William
Kouwenhoven (Figure 4).35
Because this method did not
require scalpels or significant technical expertise, it became
widely taught and quickly eclipsed the open-thorax approac