Artifical Lungs to Restore Life

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 4, 25 June 1889, Page 3

Artifical Lungs to Restore Life

An object of great curiosity in Bridgeport, Conn.,- is a rabbit which Prof. George Poe, a relative of the late Edgar Allen Poe, has drowned 11 times and then brought back to life. The professor has invented an artificial pair of lungs, which he uses to restore life by drowning or asphyxiating. To demonstrate its usefulness he submerges his rabbit ia water in the presence of witnesses, and holds it there for ten minutes. The rabbit has also been smothered with the fumes of burning charcoal, until all signs of life have been extinct. A mirror held at the mouth and nose showed no vapour, neither was there any heart action. Prof. Poe then attached his patent bellows covering over the mouth and forced oxygen into the lungs. The returning suction of the pumps drew out the deadly gases, and thus an artificial respiration produced a muscular expansion and contraction of the lungs of the subject until life was restored. Prof. Poe claims that he can drown and restore human beings as well as rabbits. He will not divulge the secret of compounding or the quantities of gaßes used. He thinks his artificial lungs will become generally adopted by fire departments and hospitals through the country. The rabbit, after having gone through with these ordeals eight or ten minutes in the presence of witnesses, was quite well a few days since accordiug to the New York World, and jumping around the dooryard in a very lively manner.