This story was originally published in our Nov/Dec 2023 issue as "Blowing Smoke?" Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.
If you were to drown in the Thames River in the late 18th century, your best chance of survival would be for a good Samaritan to pull you from the water and carry you to a receiving house outfitted with basic medical equipment — possibly even located in the pub you had just stumbled out of — established by the local life-saving organization, the Royal Humane Society. There, medical assistants who had been trained for exactly this kind of rescue would begin the work of bringing you back from sudden death.
They would strip you bare, dry you off, and clean your mouth and nostrils. They would warm your body, either by rubbing your skin with wool or heated brandy, or by laying you near a fire. And then one of the assistants would light a tobacco pipe, cover the bowl with his handkerchief, insert the opposite end into your rectum, and blow.
