Henry Heimlich Henry Heimlich Henry Judah Heimlich (; February 3, 1920 – December 17, 2016) was an American thoracic surgeon and medical researcher. He is widely credited as the inventor of the Heimlich maneuver, a technique of abdominal thrusts for stopping choking, described in "Emergency Medicine" in 1974. He also invented the Micro Trach portable oxygen system for ambulatory patients and the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve, or "flutter valve", which drains blood and air out of the chest cavity. Heimlich was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Mary (Epstein) and Philip Heimlich. His paternal grandparents were Hungarian-Jewish immigrants, and his maternal
Jay McLean Jay McLean Jay McLean (1890 – November 14, 1957) was an American physician. He is most notable for his major contribution to the discovery of heparin. Born in San Francisco in 1890, he was the son of a physician, John T. McLean. Following education at Lowell High School, he entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1909, obtaining his Bachelor of Science degree in 1914. McLean entered Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1915 where he met and began work with physiologist William Henry Howell. In 1916, when McLean was a second-year medical student, he was investigating pro-coagulant compounds