Employment of external cardiopulmonary resuscitation has become widespread since the first modern-day report inThe Journalin 1960.1There are many vagaries in regard to the exact technique, importance of adjuncts in artificial respiration, and the employment of adjunctive pharmacologic agents. In a review of five years' experience at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and a summary of the literature, reported in 1964,2the investigators reported permanent survival of 73 of their 304 patients (24%) and 312 of 1,270 patients from the literature (25%). Additional reports have appeared in the literature substantiating the diversified usefulness of nonoperative circulatory resuscitation. Other reports have shown the continued value of open-chest cardiac compression in selected circumstances. Pappelbaum et al in this issue (p 659) give experimental evidence of the fact that both the open and closed techniques of resuscitation are essentially equally effective in providing circulation to vital areas of the body.