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Bjørn Ibsen: intensive care and the conundrum of prolonging death. By demonstrating that positive pressure ventilation could save the life of a poliomyelitis victim in 1952 in Copenhagen, Dr Bjørn Ibsen brought anaesthesia techniques to the wards. But this also raised the conundrum that artificial ventilation could prolong the onset of death. And so launched a national polemic that resulted in Danish legislation requiring doctors not to prolong death by artificial means, but instead to allow patients to die in peace and dignity.