Flashback: A CPR pioneer’s life, in his own words
Peter Safar, the Pitt Med professor who co-developed CPR, published an autobiography a few years before his death in 2003. The book is extremely hard to find in its physical form, but the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology has made a free digital version available.
In the late 1950s, Safar pioneered the development of the ABCs (airway, breathing and circulation) of resuscitation, including the mouth-to-mouth technique. These formed the foundation of CPR.
Safar’s autobiography, Volume 5 of the Careers in Anesthesiology series, is downloadable as a PDF at pi.tt/safarbook. It covers the birth of CPR, Pittsburgh’s groundbreaking Freedom House Ambulance Service (regarded as the first such service in the United States staffed by skilled paramedics), the origins of the Departments of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Pitt, the history of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research as well as the great doctor’s own fascinating personal story.
