Contemporary medicine brings with it ethical problems that human
beings have not faced before. With the advent of modern
resuscitative techniques, issues arise of when to start and stop
cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In the 1950s, doctors in
hospitals often carried a scalpel that was used when a patient
went into cardiac arrest–the chest would be opened, and the
heart massaged directly. This method saved the lives of many
surgical patients as well as generally healthy pregnant women
who had reactions to the anesthesia then routinely given during
labor and delivery. It is still used today on trauma victims and
on some heart attack victims. In 1960, William B. Kouwenhoven
and his associates published an article in the Journal of the
American Medical Association on closed-chest heart massage,
which is still taught to the general public in CPR classes
today. In the early days, doctors would sometimes work on a
patient for over an hour, and some of these patients recovered
without significant brain damage. Over th