Blood for All

Only last month, in a comic strip, when Daddy Warbucks had to have a blood transfusion, Little Orphan Annie had a frantic time finding a donor with the right blood type. But that desperate, urgent situation, fairly common in modern medicine, may soon be out of date.

Such far-from-comic searches may soon be ended by a new method of blood transfusion that makes possible the use of one type of blood for all cases. The "revolutionary" new process was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association last fortnight by Drs. Ernest Witebsky and Niels Christian Klendshoj of the University of Buffalo.

The blood of every human being is in one of four groups: A, B, AB, or O, a classification based on the nature of blood cells. If a donor's blood is not of the same type as the patient's, antagonistic cells introduced into the blood stream destroy the old cells, cause death. Over 40% of all human blood is of type 0. Theoretically, donors who have type O blood can safely give transfusions to persons of any type. But practically, type O blood contains anti-A or anti-B factors which, if active, destroy A or B cells.

Nine years ago, Nobelman Karl Landsteiner of the Rockefeller Institute isolated the A substance, discovered that it was a crystalline carbohydrate. Last week, Drs. Witebsky & Klendshoj reported that they had isolated the B substance, also a starchy powder, from gastric juice and animal tissues.

To prepare universal blood, they add a few milligrams of A and B powders to each pint of type O. These added A and B crystals are strong enough to destroy the anti-A and anti-B factors. The neutralized blood can be used immediately, in hospital or battlefield, for all transfusions. The doctors have used the powders successfully in over 100 cases at Buffalo General Hospital, have already sent a supply to London.

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