TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD

Evening Star, Issue 18669, 25 June 1924, Page 10

TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD

SEVEN YEARS’ EXPERIENCE IN DUNEDIN. UNIVERSAL DONOILS WANTED. Dr Falconer, medical superintendent of the Dunedin Hospital, is railing for applications fiom persons win are, willing’ to give, their services m a a emergency as donors of blood for transfusion. 'i ho transfusion of blood is, of course, an rid idea. The ancients used to drink ill the blood. In modern times the operation was mostly resulted to as a remedy tor chrome cases of various sorts, pernicious aiuemia one of these. In 1001 the practice was made exact by the discov-

ery of the grouping principle. The blood given must be of the type of iho blood in Iho patient.

Hut- there ore men and women who are proved to he universal donors. A universal donor is a person who can give hloud to any oilier person without any incompatibility arising, 'llicse are the donors that Dr Falconer wishes to enrol.

Why the enrolment ? In order to have tho donor or a donor within reach of an emergency call. In the groat majority of eases where transfusion is deemed advisable time is of importance, and if the medical man in charge has to wait for a volunteer to be found, and then have to lest him to make sure that his blood is ■suitable, life may bo imperilled. For that i reason relatives arc not as a body the proper donors. Tho relative who arrives iirst may bo obviously a. most undesirable person to transfuse from, Relatives arc usually willing to surrender to the ; process, hut this is time-consuming. In London and in other large centres there exists an arrangement by which the hospitals can ring up the police, or the firemen, and at once secure tho exact type required, since tho men are enrolled and ready-typed, and know exactly what is required of them and how much they will bo paid for submitting to the bleeding. A moderate amount of transfusing has been going on at tho Dunedin Hospital, say two or three cases a month, for the past seven years, and donors have been enrolled, but they come and go, and Dr Falconer deems it prudent to extend Ills list, and not have to further seek for volunteers amongst (lie doctors or the students. This seems to be a wise proceeding. It should bo put on a business footing. It is not fair to as it were compel a man to be a donor, laying himself open to a charge of inhumanity by a refusal. The service should be paid lor. In the Old Country many persons are glad of the opportunity to thus earn a liberal fee. That this giving of blood is not a, serious tiling for the giver may lie judged from the assurance of one of our specialists in medicine to tho effect that the loss is made up in about twenty-four hours. The experience of a man from whom a pint and a-half wa.s drawn to meet an emergency is also to tho same effect: “ They took the blood from my rightarm below the cllaow. Hie surgical procedure is not worth talking about. It amounted to nothing so far as I wa-s concerned. 'llien they made me lie on a iable for half an hour, and a nurse brought, me a glass of milk wish a. dash of something iu it. Then I got up and went fo my work, and all I fell, win a little lightiieadedr.css. " This, he it remembered, was the result of taking a pint and a-half. But that is more than is taken normally. A pint or less is the usual quantity.