Procainamide Hydrochloride in Ventricular Defibrillation

Widespread interest among surgeons and physicians in the techniques of cardiac resuscitation has elevated these procedures to a level of universal acceptance. No surgical suite is without ready access to the tools of these techniques, and accounts even appear with regularity in the lay press of attempts at resuscitation far from hospital facilities. A number of years of experience, and many collected series, are beginning to delineate more clearly the areas in which these techniques must be used from the catastrophes in which the chances of successful resuscitation are so remote as to interdict the attempt.

Granted that surgeons are familiar with the techniques, it is not the purpose of this report to recount them. There is one specific area in this field, however, which we feel has not received sufficient emphasis or recognition. A certain vagueness remains in many published recommendations of the steps to be taken in regard