"Nécessaire pour les noyés". The material culture of resuscitation and the artificalisation of atmosphere

Résumé En

This chapter wishes to address intellectual and material issues that surrounded the management of natural elements over human body, through a water color of a “necessaire pour les noyés”, a project that has been sent in 1784 to the Académie Royale de médecine by Calmette a Surgeon of Narbonne. This improved version of "rescue boxes”, new artefacts dedicated to save the life of asphyxiated and drowned people that have spread from the 1770's onward in Europe, reflects on the one hand the overlapped of different medical approaches - between galenic medicine which tend to restore the equilibrium of the bodies in the humoral balance and a Hippocratic vision of the humane body grasps in its environment- and on the other, needs to be resituated in a specific material culture: those of portable travelling kits, such as professional sets and toilette kits. They present composite objects, which gather in fact a collection of various appliances and instruments aiming to exert an action on the inanimate bodies. In Calmette’s proposal the chest takes the shape of a kind of stretcher which act as a drying oven to restore the warmth of the body, while its structure reveals several drawers and compartments containing specific tools, such as a syringe for the insufflation of tobacco smoke into the intestines or a system to manufacture vital air (oxygen), to be filled in a glass vessel, linked to a bladder and a canula in order to restoring breath by injecting air into the lungs. Yet, beyond speculative and imaginary object, it grew from Calmette day to day practice as a surgeon in Narbonne, whereas a part of the prototype has been built -with the support of the urban authorities- and experienced on the canal that crosses the city. This material arrangement (encompassing bodies, technical tools and information’s system around it) induces a peculiar organisation of gestures and thoughts that have participated in changing the understanding on interactions between natural element, airs ‘properties and human body, as well as a highly versatile artefact where each singular elements it is composed off could be replaced, readjusted and variously combined in order to be adapted to any situation on the ground. It suggests a performative action that would rectify the accidents of human life: by creating a regulated 'micro-atmosphere' that is decontextualised from local conditions, 'universal' emergency action tends to artificialize the relationship with the environment.