A history of prehospital coronary care.

One hundred and fifty seven years were to elapse before Burns' instructions were initiated successfully outside hospital. Several events led to the report of the first pre-hospital resuscitation by Pantridge and Geddes in 1967.' Beck in 1947 successfully defibrillated a human heart2 and in 1956 reported the successful open chest correction ofventricular fibrillation complicating a coronary attack.3 Zoll showed that transthoracic defibrillation was possible in the clinical situation.4 Kouwenhoven in 1960 demonstrated that blood flow to vital organs might be maintained simply by compressing the lower end of the sternum;5 thus he initiated cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).