Highlights of the History of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
 
1740   The Paris Academy of Sciences officially recommended mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for drowning victims.
1767   The Society for the Recovery of Drowned Persons became the first organized effort to deal with sudden and unexpected death.
1891   Dr. Friedrich Maass performed the first equivocally documented chest compression in humans.
1903   Dr. George Crile reported the first successful use of external chest compressions in human resuscitation.
1904   The first American case of closed-chest cardiac massage was performed by Dr. George Crile.
1954   James Elam was the first to prove that expired air was sufficient to maintain adequate oxygenation.
1956   Peter Safar and James Elam invented mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
1957   The United States military adopted the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation method  to revive unresponsive victims.
1960   Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was developed. The American Heart Association started a program to acquaint physicians with close-chest cardiac resuscitation and became the forerunner of CPR training for the general public.
1963   Cardiologist Leonard Scherlis started the American Heart Association's CPR Committee, and the same year, the American Heart Association formally endorsed CPR.
1966   The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences convened an ad hoc conference on cardiopulmonary resuscitation.  The conference was the direct result of requests from the American National Red Cross and other agencies to establish standardized training and performance standards for CPR.
1972   Leonard Cobb held the world's first mass citizen training in CPR in Seattle, Washington called Medic 2.  He helped train over 100,000 people the first two years of the programs.
1981   A program to provide telephone instructions in CPR began in King County, Washington.  The program used emergency dispatchers to give instant directions while the fire department and EMT personnel were en route to the scene.  Dispatcher-assisted CPR  is now standard care for dispatcher centers throughout the United States.