[Cardiac massage in the early days of the technique. An instrument of dubious usefulness].

Authors expose a short historical profile of heart massage techniques purposed and realized in the second part of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Some methods were well known and diffused, and object of discussion, as demonstrated by Macaura's Blood Circulator, an instrument used for external heart massage, found in U.K., obtaining no practical results; but constructed and sold only for gain.