Heimlich's Maneuvers

November 25, 2013
Heimlich’s memoir looks beyond the invention of the author’s eponymous technique, which has saved countless choking victims since 1974. The book begins with Heimlich’s comfortable childhood in New Rochelle, N.Y.—filled with daydreams of “medical discovery”—and follows him through his training at Cornell Medical College, his service in the Navy during WWII at a Gobi Desert hospital, his marriage, and his establishment of a remarkable surgical practice. He proudly shares his astounding list of medical inventions, including a “reversed gastric tube operation” that allowed patients with damaged esophagi (and credits Romanian doctor Dan Gavriliu, who independently developed a similar procedure four years prior, but was behind the Iron Curtain) to eat again; exercises that taught people to swallow who’d lost the physical ability to do so; a chest drain valve that advanced the care of patients with life-threatening chest wounds; and a “microtrach” for patients with chronic breathing problems. Heimlich acknowledges that his most famous creation is the antichoking technique that bears his name, which “allows anyone... to save a life.” The book also covers his fascinating but less-well-known legal battle with the Red Cross over its teaching of the Heimlich maneuver. This is a lively read for those beginning medical careers and for anyone interested in the life of a storied man of medicine.

December 15, 2013
A self-promoting memoir from the inventor of the abdominal thrust technique that bears his name. A retired thoracic surgeon, Heimlich launches into his prideful narrative by relating how he faced and overcame anti-Semitism early in his career; how, as a 21-year-old camp counselor, he saved the life of a man trapped in a train wreck; and how, as a young medical officer in the U.S. Navy, he saved the sight of many Chinese soldiers by medicating their eyes with a concoction he invented. Some years after the war, Heimlich, working with dogs, developed a reverse gastric tube procedure that replaced or bypassed the esophagus, thus enabling patients with damaged ones to swallow. Later, he designed a drainage mechanism with a flutter valve that prevented fluids or air from returning to the chest after surgery and an unobtrusive oxygen delivery device for patients with breathing problems. His best known achievement, however, is the Heimlich maneuver, a simple emergency technique that forces air out of the lungs of a choking person, enabling an object lodged in the airway to be expelled. This technique, writes the author, is also effective for treating asthma and victims of drowning. His ideas have not been universally accepted, and he is still battling with the Red Cross over its recommendation to first try back slaps on choking victims. Heimlich's claim that malariotherapy (injections of malaria-infected blood) can be an effective treatment of HIV/AIDS patients has also met with opposition. Heimlich's plainly written memoir, replete with pictures of himself and anecdotes featuring him with grateful patients, is not just a personal story but a sharp criticism of a medical system that he sees as too slow to accept or at least research controversial new ideas. A rather grandiose self-assessment that may appeal to someone whose life has been saved by the Heimlich maneuver--not likely to reach a wider readership.

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January 1, 2014
Henry Heimlich has saved many lives and made it possible for nearly everyone, even children, to save a life and be a hero. In 1974, he introduced the Heimlich Maneuver, an uncomplicated technique for treating victims of choking. But his creative problem-solving extends beyond obstructed airway passages. Heimlich is a real-life medical version of TV's MacGyver. While stationed in the Gobi Desert during WWII, he devised a simple cure for trachoma (a leading cause of blindness) by mixing pulverized sulfa antibiotic tablets with shaving cream. He has devised an operation that fashions a new esophagus by using a portion of the stomach, invented a chest drain valve that is used in the treatment of collapsed lungs, and developed a device that aids in the delivery of supplemental oxygen. In his uplifting memoir, the retired thoracic surgeon and medical innovator comes across as a man with big ideas and lofty ideals, a caring physician who combines common sense and knowledge to make the world a safer place.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)