The most kissed lips.

‘Resusci Anne’ is the brand name of a mannequin created in the 1960s to assist in the training of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). The mannequin is often described as having ‘the most kissed lips in history’.

The Maitland Hospital Collection has a Resusci Anne mannequin, and a companion male mannequin. The mannequins were unpacked in September 2019 as the Collected Memory Project began to document items in the Maitland Hospital Collection. NBN News was there recording the moment.

Views of the two mannequins as they were being unpacked in September 2019.

Maitland Hospital’s Resusci Anne was acquired in late 1974 at a cost of $1,854. Maitland Lions Club and the Health Commission each contributed $750 towards the cost. The hospital made up the $354 balance. As a Maitland Mercury article explained:

Anne has an electronic heart which can be set to develop any number of alarming symptoms. Because an instructor controlling the heart can stimulate a real-life chain of events, students can learn to take quick and direct action which may save lives in the wards.

Maitland Mercury article from The Maitland Hospital Collection scrapbook of press clippings, 1971 to 1974. (Maitland Hospital Collection Item 278) — **Maitland Mercury article from the Maitland Hospital Collection** **scrapbook of press clippings, 1971 to 1974.**
(Maitland Hospital Collection Item 278)

The Resusci Anne mannequin was created in the 1960s by Norwegian toymaker and entrepreneur Asmund Laerdal. Laerdal’s mannequin was inspired partly by his own son’s near drowning accident and by a request from a group of Norwegian anesthesiologists for assistance to design an effective means to train people in CPR.

Laerdal modelled the face of the mannequin on the death mask of an unknown young woman who had drowned in the River Seine in Paris in the 1880s. Known as l’inconnue de la Seine (the unknown female of the Seine), the death mask became a popular icon, and has inspired writers and artists. Writer and philosopher Albert Camus, for example, described her as the ‘drowned Mona Lisa’.

Laerdal named the mannequin ‘Anne’ after the Anne toy doll manufactured and made popular by his company.