With the festive season soon to be upon us, have you ever wondered why kissing under the mistletoe is a festive tradition?
Believe it or not, this tradition originates from an ancient Scandinavian legend, where the Norse God Baldur was murdered by a poisoned dart made from mistletoe. Devastated, Baldur’s mother, the Goddess Frigg, cried tears that turned into mistletoe berries, which when placed into Baldur’s wound miraculously brought him back to life!
Overjoyed, Goddess Frigg blessed all mistletoe plants so that they could never be used as a weapon again and that anyone who passed underneath them would receive a kiss – A ‘mistletoe kiss’.
A ‘mistletoe kiss’ may have been powerful in legends, but in reality, knowing how to give the ‘kiss of life’, rescue breaths and chest compressions, is one of the greatest possible life skills a person can have.
With this in mind, we’ve compiled our top 10 interesting respiration and CPR facts that may get you thinking about the true powers behind the ‘kiss of life’:
- In 1767, the Society for Recovery of Drowned Persons taught various techniques for reviving casualties of drowning, including mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths, applying pressure to the abdomen and even tickling the casualty’s throat!
- The word ‘Lung’ originates from 13th Century Germanic language, it means ‘light’ which refers to the weight of the organ (because there is so much air in there!)
- The respiratory system consists of almost 1,500 miles of airways – approximately the same distance from London to Moscow!
- The face of the popular Laerdal Little Anne Manikin is actually based on a real woman, who sadly drowned in the River Seine, Paris in the late 1800s.
- To provide our bodies with the oxygen they actually require, we would only need to breathe once per minute. The reason we breathe so often is to eliminate carbon dioxide build-up in the lungs.
- The longest time a breath has been held is 24 minutes 3 seconds, which was achieved by Alex Segura Vendrell in Barcelona in February 2016.
- If a set of lungs were rolled out flat, they’d be around the size of a tennis court!
- Yawning because you’re tired? Surprisingly, a yawn is triggered when the brain detects low oxygen levels in the lungs – yawning is the body’s way of taking in large amounts of oxygen.
- The first medical ventilator, also known as the ‘iron lung’, was recorded in 1832. However, it wasn’t until 1928 that these started to be widely used.
- Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was officially recommended in 1740, when the Paris Academy of Science recommended this for casualties of drowning.
Source: Qualsafe Awards www.qualsafeawards.org