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Henry Heimlich
Henry Judah Heimlich (February 3, 1920 – December 17, 2016) was an American thoracic surgeon and medical researcher. He is widely credited for the discovery of the Heimlich maneuver, a technique of abdominal thrusts for stopping choking, first described in 1974. He also invented the Micro Trach portable oxygen system for ambulatory patients and the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve, or "flutter valve", which drains blood and air out of the chest cavity.
Heimlich was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Mary (Epstein) and Philip Heimlich. His paternal grandparents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants, and his maternal grandparents were Russian Jews. He graduated from New Rochelle High School (N.Y.) in 1937 and from Cornell University (where he also served as drum major of the Cornell Big Red Marching Band) with a BA in 1941. At the age of 23, he received his M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College in 1943.
After medical school, Heimlich served with the U.S. Navy in China during World War II. In January 1945, as a member of the US Navy Reserve, Lieutenant (junior grade) Heimlich was assigned to Camp Four of the Sino-American Special Technical Cooperative Organization (SACO) located at Xamba, Suiyuan Province in northern China, on the southern edge of the Gobi Desert. Officially he was the chief medical officer responsible for the well-being of American and Chinese military personnel at this camp, but in actuality he also took care of a wide array of medical issues for civilians in the small town. Camp Four received news of the war's end in late August 1945. During this time, Heimlich claimed he developed an innovative treatment for victims of trachoma, a previously incurable bacterial infection of the eyelids that was causing blindness throughout Asia and the Middle East. According to Heimlich, his approach – a mixture of an antibiotic ground into a base of shaving cream – proved effective, and it was used successfully on patients.
In 1962, Heimlich invented the chest drainage flutter valve (also called the Heimlich valve), and was granted a patent for the device in 1969. He said his inspiration came from seeing a Chinese soldier die from a bullet wound to the chest during World War II, a claim that was disputed by Frederick Webster, Heimlich's medical assistant in China. The design of the valve allows air and blood to drain from the chest cavity in order to allow a collapsed lung to re-expand. The invention was credited with saving the lives of hundreds of American soldiers in the Vietnam War.
On June 1, 1974, Heimlich first published his views about the first-aid maneuver that would bear his name in an informal article, "Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary", in the magazine Emergency Medicine. On June 11, Arthur Snider, science columnist for the Chicago Daily News wrote about Dr. Heimlich's findings, opening with the sentence, "A leading surgeon invites the public to try a method he has developed for forcing out food stuck in the windpipe of persons choking to death," in a story reprinted nationwide.
On June 19, 1974, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that retired restaurant owner Isaac Piha, who had read the Snider article in the Seattle paper, used the procedure to rescue a choking victim, Irene Bogachus, in Bellevue, Washington, a story reprinted in other newspapers. An editorial followed in the August 12 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, which was the first to refer to the procedure as "the Heimlich Maneuver".
Heimlich formally described the technique in a pair of 1975 medical journal papers, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
From 1976 to 1985, the choking-rescue guidelines of the American Heart Association and of the American Red Cross taught rescuers to first perform a series of back blows to remove the foreign body airway obstruction. If back blows failed, then rescuers learned to proceed with the Heimlich maneuver (aka "abdominal thrusts"). After a July 1985 American Heart Association conference, back blows were removed from choking-rescue guidelines. From 1986 to 2005, the published guidelines of the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross recommended only the Heimlich maneuver as the treatment for choking; the National Institutes of Health still does apply it for conscious persons over one year of age, as does the National Safety Council.
Henry Heimlich
Henry Judah Heimlich (February 3, 1920 – December 17, 2016) was an American thoracic surgeon and medical researcher. He is widely credited for the discovery of the Heimlich maneuver, a technique of abdominal thrusts for stopping choking, first described in 1974. He also invented the Micro Trach portable oxygen system for ambulatory patients and the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve, or "flutter valve", which drains blood and air out of the chest cavity.
Heimlich was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Mary (Epstein) and Philip Heimlich. His paternal grandparents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants, and his maternal grandparents were Russian Jews. He graduated from New Rochelle High School (N.Y.) in 1937 and from Cornell University (where he also served as drum major of the Cornell Big Red Marching Band) with a BA in 1941. At the age of 23, he received his M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College in 1943.
After medical school, Heimlich served with the U.S. Navy in China during World War II. In January 1945, as a member of the US Navy Reserve, Lieutenant (junior grade) Heimlich was assigned to Camp Four of the Sino-American Special Technical Cooperative Organization (SACO) located at Xamba, Suiyuan Province in northern China, on the southern edge of the Gobi Desert. Officially he was the chief medical officer responsible for the well-being of American and Chinese military personnel at this camp, but in actuality he also took care of a wide array of medical issues for civilians in the small town. Camp Four received news of the war's end in late August 1945. During this time, Heimlich claimed he developed an innovative treatment for victims of trachoma, a previously incurable bacterial infection of the eyelids that was causing blindness throughout Asia and the Middle East. According to Heimlich, his approach – a mixture of an antibiotic ground into a base of shaving cream – proved effective, and it was used successfully on patients.
In 1962, Heimlich invented the chest drainage flutter valve (also called the Heimlich valve), and was granted a patent for the device in 1969. He said his inspiration came from seeing a Chinese soldier die from a bullet wound to the chest during World War II, a claim that was disputed by Frederick Webster, Heimlich's medical assistant in China. The design of the valve allows air and blood to drain from the chest cavity in order to allow a collapsed lung to re-expand. The invention was credited with saving the lives of hundreds of American soldiers in the Vietnam War.
On June 1, 1974, Heimlich first published his views about the first-aid maneuver that would bear his name in an informal article, "Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary", in the magazine Emergency Medicine. On June 11, Arthur Snider, science columnist for the Chicago Daily News wrote about Dr. Heimlich's findings, opening with the sentence, "A leading surgeon invites the public to try a method he has developed for forcing out food stuck in the windpipe of persons choking to death," in a story reprinted nationwide.
On June 19, 1974, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that retired restaurant owner Isaac Piha, who had read the Snider article in the Seattle paper, used the procedure to rescue a choking victim, Irene Bogachus, in Bellevue, Washington, a story reprinted in other newspapers. An editorial followed in the August 12 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, which was the first to refer to the procedure as "the Heimlich Maneuver".
Heimlich formally described the technique in a pair of 1975 medical journal papers, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
From 1976 to 1985, the choking-rescue guidelines of the American Heart Association and of the American Red Cross taught rescuers to first perform a series of back blows to remove the foreign body airway obstruction. If back blows failed, then rescuers learned to proceed with the Heimlich maneuver (aka "abdominal thrusts"). After a July 1985 American Heart Association conference, back blows were removed from choking-rescue guidelines. From 1986 to 2005, the published guidelines of the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross recommended only the Heimlich maneuver as the treatment for choking; the National Institutes of Health still does apply it for conscious persons over one year of age, as does the National Safety Council.