Carl Gottlob Rafn

Instead, he became Assessor in the Ministries of Agriculture and Commerce under the Danish absolute monarchy and filled various other posts, such as being the first director of a new Royal Aquavit Distillery, which was founded on his own initiative.

[3] Together with his friend the physicist J. D. Herholdt, Rafn wrote an account “On the hibernation of animals” that won a prize from the French Institut National.

[4] The same two authors stood behind a small, but influential book entitled An Attempt at an Historical Survey of Life-saving Measures for Drowning Persons and Information of the Best Means by Which They Can Again Be Brought Back to Life from 1794.

[5] More recently, the book was reprinted – both in Danish and in English translation – on the occasion of the 10 anniversary of the Scandinavian Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine in 1960.

[6] This treatise has been hailed as containing ”an enormous amount of information, and more importantly, wise comment - much of which was visionary and subsequently has been proven to be of key relevance to resuscitation of the submerged victim as practiced today”.