AID LIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 13

AID LIVING.

BLOOD OF THE DEAD.

RUSSIAN EXPERIMENTS. LONDON. Experiments in Russia suggest that the blood of the dead may soon be used to restore the living to health. These experiments are said to have disclosed these facts: Blood from corpses gives better results than from live donors, and red cell increase is higher than after transfusion of an identical quantity of blood from live donors.

Professor W. N. Shamor, Russian research worker, outlining in the "Lancet," his experiments on animals and man, declares that the transfusion of cadaver (corpse) blood has other definite advantages—notably the rarer and less conspicuous reactions on patients—but that they could be utilised in practice only with widespread and efficient organisation for procuring such blood.

"In spite of the fact that there is a large body of supporting evidence for its value, and that full sanction has been obtained for taking blood from cases of sudden death, medical men at the courts of justice were unwilling to allow the blood of bodies that are at their disposal to be drawn for clinical needs," writes the professor. "Yet here, by an active co-operation of those in charge of mortuaries, there is opportunity for a further practical development of the method of obtaining cadaver blood." Strong Public Prejudice. He speaks of the strong prejudice in the majority of people at the bare thought of transfusing into a live person the blood from a corpse and the "holy awe" at the thought of "disturbing the repose of the dead," and asks: "If it is true that the blood of a dead person drawn into a glass vessel retains its full vitality would this not produce a desire not to destroy, but to give it a chance of continuing useful life even while the body to which it formerly belonged is decomposing?"

From experiments on animals the professor "confirmed our fundamental thesis that the blood in the dead body preserves its vitality for about 10 hours after death."

Another interesting question is asked by the professor: "Could not some tissues or organs from the dead body be transferred to the living and continue to function normally J"

A member of the medical staff of a London hospital said:

"The use of corpses' blood in the treatment of illness has been in vogue for some years in Russia. I saw it being done in a big accident hospital in Moscow. Of course, elaborate precautions are taken to ensure that the dead man did not die from any disease. lU, is claimed that very good results have been obtained from this method.

"Since I saw the Moscow methods I have been trying to advocate their use in this country in order to relieve the strain on blood donors, but there seems to be very little enthusiasm for it among British medical men."