CPR didn't appear fully formed. It evolved over thousands of years, through false starts, dead ends, and a handful of breakthroughs by people who refused to accept that "they're gone" was the end of the conversation.
Early methods (3000 BC – 1500s)
Ancient civilizations tried unconventional approaches — Mayan rectal fumigation around 3000 BC, biblical mouth-to-mouth references in the Book of Kings around 896 BC. Medieval methods leaned on flagellation, heat application, barrel rolling, and bellows-assisted ventilation introduced around 1530.
The 1700s
Tobacco-smoke fumigation (1711). Mouth-to-mouth recommendations from the Paris Academy of Sciences (1740). Inversion techniques (1770). Barrel methods (1773). England's Royal Humane Society, founded in 1774, organized the first systematic resuscitation efforts.
Modern CPR development (1850s–1960s)
Marshall Hall described his manual roll method in 1856. The Silvester method followed in 1858. Dr. Friedrich Maass documented the first chest compression in 1891. James Elam proved expired-air oxygenation in 1954. Peter Safar and Elam invented modern mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in 1956.
The public training era (1960s–1980s)
Dr. Kowenhoven introduced closed-chest cardiac massage in 1960 — the moment that turned CPR from a hospital procedure into something anyone could do. The American Heart Association began physician training programs. Leonard Cobb conducted the first mass citizen CPR training in Seattle in 1972, training over 100,000 people within two years. Dispatcher-assisted CPR over the telephone began in 1981.
A reality check
Television dramatically overrepresents CPR effectiveness — pegging success rates around 75% — while actual unwitnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival is closer to 6% to admission. AED distribution is significantly improving outcomes, though, and bystander CPR remains the highest-leverage intervention available before EMS arrives.
That last point is the entire reason we exist.