BACK FROM THE DEAD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22142, 22 June 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

BACK FROM THE DEAD

CANADIAN DOCTOR'S FEAT Supposedly dead for five minutes, a five-year-old girl has been brought back to life again at Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, by the skill of a specialist, Dr. A. F. Laird, who injected nine drops of adrenalin into her heart. Although similar operations are now fairly common, it is believed in Canada that this is the first case in which a person has been revived after being apparently dead for as long as five minutes. It is certainly without parallel in Canadian medical history and it is expected that Dr. Laird will contribute a paper on the case to the Canadian Medical Association.

The little girl's name was Audrey Brown and she was operated on for double mastoid. After the operation her heart failed, this being attributed to a recent attack of scarlet fever. " There is not the slightest doubt that the child was dead and that the adrenalin injection brought her back to life," said Dr. Laird.

Other notable adrenalin triumphs in recent years are: In 1921 Dr. Cranston Walker, of Birmingham, England, brought back to life an 11-months-old child whose heart stopped beating for four minutes. Last year a 58-year-old English gardener named John Puckering was " dead " for four and a-half minutes, but returned to life. Early this year an undertaker was called to bury a 71-year-old man of Tyler, Texas. Doctors injected adrenalin and the undertaker lost a customer.