Blowing Smoke.

By the end of the 18th century, distaste for actual mouth-to-mouth contact - "it was degrading to touch those who had died an Unnatural Death", a 1796 account states - had caused mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing to be largely replaced by ventilation via bellows, metal tubes, and wooden pipes. But at the time, this was one of the most popular therapies for drowning victims, believed to be "amongst the most efficacious applications" - or so writes physician Thomas Cogan in a pamphlet published in 1795 by the Royal Humane Society. Midwives had likely been practicing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on their neonatal patients for centuries, but were often isolated from and looked down upon by the medical profession; historical analyses refer to their technique as "inelegant", "undignified" and "the method practised [sic] by the vulgar to restore stillborn children.". [Extracted from the article]