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Intensive Care Med (2011) 37:10841086DOI 10.1007/s00134-011-2235-z SPECIAL ARTICLE
Louise Reisner-Snlar The birth of intensive care medicine:Bjrn Ibsens records
Received: 17 October 2010Accepted: 19 February 2011Published online: 25 May 2011 Copyright jointly held by Springer and
ESICM 2011
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00134-011-2235-z
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L. Reisner-Snlar ())
Berufsgenossenschaftliche Unfallklinik Frankfurt am Main, Anasthesie, Intensivmedizin und Schmerztherapie, Friedberger Landstrae 430, 60389 Frankfurt am Main, Germanye-mail: LouiseReisner@hotmail.com Tel.: ?49-694752772Fax: ?49-6172-983348
Abstract The birth of intensive care medicine was a process that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, during and after the poliomyelitis epidemic in 1952/1953. The events that led to the creation of the rst intensive care unit in the world in December 1953 are well described. It is generally agreed upon that the start of the process was the fact that an anaesthesiologist (Bjrn Ibsen) was brought out of the operating theatre and asked to use his skills on a 12-year-old girl suffering from polio. The medical record of the girl contains a minute-by-minute description of the historical event. A translation of this part of the record is published as an Online Resource to the article. The role played by the epidemiologist Mogens Bjrneboe is further
analysed. He was the catalyst of the process, being the one with the idea that the skills of an anaesthesiologist could be used for other purposes than surgery. When rst Ibsen realised what could be done with his skills, he proved to be one of the most progressive and inventive doctors seen in modern medicine. An interview with Prof. Ibsen in 2006 is published as an Online Resource to the article.
Keywords Intensive care
Bjrn Ibsen Mogen Bjrneboe
HCA lassen Blegdam
Copenhagen Poliomyelitis
Polio epidemic 1952 Respiratory
failure Positive pressure ventilation
History of medicine
The birth of intensive care medicine, as it is generally acknowledged today, was the result of a succession of unconventional methods and solutions hastily improvised by a Danish hospital in order to cope with the overwhelming medical and organisational challenges of the poliomyelitis epidemic of 1952.
If 1952 can therefore be considered as the annus mirabilis of intensive care, the event was far more gradual in detail: A last desperate attempt...