A new method of blood transfusion / by A.E. Wright.

  • Almroth Wright
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new method of blood transfusion / by A.E. Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Reprinted for tlie Author from the British Medical Journal, Dec. 5, 1891. J A NEW METHOD OF BLOOD TRANSFUSION. By A. E. WRIGHT, M.D.Dubl. [From the Laboratories of the Conjoint Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians, Victoria Embankment, London.] The discovery by Arthus and Pages of the possibility of keep- ing the blood permanently liquid by precipitating the lime salts in it in the form of insoluble oxalates has opened a way for improving the methods of transfusion as at present prac- tised. The demerits of the method in use can be very easily summarised. The injection of defibrinated blood is a dan- gerous method, since intravascular coagulations have been often observed to follow it. On the other hand, the method of arm-to-arm transfusion is one of extreme difficulty, and requires, if it is to be successful, the careful preparation of somewhat complicated apparatus. The merits of the decal- cified blood of Arthus and Pages for purposes of transfusion, on the other hand, appear to me to be perfectly unique, as such blood is, as far as can be discovered, perfectly normal blood, except for the fact that it no longer contains any lime in a form available for the formation of fibrin, and the further fact that it has undergone a very trifling dilution (not more than one-tenth of its volume). It is therefore not a disinte- grated blood like defibrinated blood, and, on the other hand, it will not clot unless we intend it to clot, and unless we, for that purpose, restore to it the lime salts which have been removed from it by receiving it into a solution of a soluble oxalate. In order now to ascertain whether these theoretical merits of decalcified blood for purposes of transfusion would be confirmed by experimental evidence, I undertook trans- fusion experiments with decalcified blood in three dogs. The blood, after being decalcified, was in two1 of the experi- ments drawn off from the animal upon which the transfusion was to be made, and was decalcified in the ordinary manner, and was then, after the lapse of ten minutes, reinjected into the circulation through the jugular vein. In the third case2 the blood of another dog was employed. The operation, which was in each case performed under antiseptic precau- tions, was then terminated by the application of the neces- sary ligatures, and the closing of the wound. No pathological symptoms whatever were observed. In the case of one of the animals, who was twice operated upon by the reinjection of 1 The quantities of blood injected in these experiments was the amount of blood which it was found possible to draw off without causing the death of the animal by haemorrhage. 2 The amount of blood injected in this experiment was 100 c.c, ana cor- responded to the addition to the circulating blood of about a third ot its volume.