DRY BLOOD PLASMA

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 249, 18 July 1942, Page 5

DRY BLOOD PLASMA

Packed In Airtight Tins Setting to work exactly as if he were opening a tin of meat, Lieutenant H. BYandell opened a tin of dried blood plasma, a derivative of human blood, at the annual meeting of the Wellington branch of the National Blood Transfusion Service this wee!:. Lieutenant Yandell addressed the meeting on. blood transfusion in general. In the course of his sneech he produced a cardboard carton about 12 inches square and four inches high. In it were two cylindrical cans, into which the air hissed as he opened each with a key like the key on a sardine tin. One can contained a bottle of distilled water and some rubber tubing and other articles, and the other can contained the dried blood plasma, a light, cream-coloured, lumpy powder. He explained how the articles supplied were used for adding the water to the powder, without contamination, after which the mixture was shaken up and added to the patient’s blood stream. Dry blood plasma is particularly useful under service conditions. It has been made in New Zealand, but not in large quantities, and it has not been packed in this manner. Lieutenant Yandell said that before the war there was nothing in tlie United States W compare with the Wellington blood transfusion service in excellence of management and spirit. The blood of its 1148 members was just as important in the war as ammunition, he said.