Slow Transfusion

As the result of two relatively new procedures in the practice of medicine, the staff of London's Middlesex Hospital last week was able to report perfection of a slow and safe method of transfusing blood. One of those helpful procedures is the preservation of human blood by the addition of substances to keep it in a clear, unclotted, fluid condition. Thus gallons of blood may be accumulated from donors, kept in a refrigerator until needed for a transfusion. The other helpful procedure is venoclysis, the slow drop-by-drop introduction into a vein, through a hollow needle, of a salt or a sugar solution, which a patient needs to support his strength, to nourish or to cure him. A sterile container for such solutions, to be administered by venoclysis, is now a customary part of operating room equipment. If an operation is going to cause great loss of blood or dangerously sap a debilitated patient's vitality, a venoclysis needle is pushed into a big vein in his arm or leg, is connected by rubber tubing to the container of salt or sugar solution.

Middlesex Hospital investigators found that the veins would accept oxygenated preserved blood drop by drop by the venoclysis method. A patient who revived sufficiently to undergo a major operation caused jubilation at Middlesex Hospital. That patient received 40 drops a minute for 51 1/4 hours--five quarts of blood.

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