Change of Blood

It's one thing to change the oil in a car; it's another to change the blood in a human being. But from England last week came news that the trick had been done -- a baby had had a series of transfusions as total as draining a crankcase.

Attending an expectant mother in Solihull, near Birmingham, the doctors had good reason to believe that, like 85% of humanity, their patient's baby would have blood containing the mysterious factor Rh in positive form (TIME, Nov. 27). Such infants, cradled in the womb of a mother whose Rh factor is negative, occasionally develop a fatal anemia known as Erythroblastosis fetalis. The Solihull mother had already lost three babies for that reason.

This time the doctors removed her baby by Caesarean section three weeks before its time, set to work giving it a complete new blood supply. With infinite delicacy they inserted a transfusion needle in the baby's tiny vein, while at another spot they drained off the child's own toxic blood. Three weeks later they handed the mother a healthy, rosy baby, purring like a well-lubricated Cadillac.

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