PROPERTIES OF BLOOD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 4408, 23 October 1934, Page 3

PROPERTIES OF BLOOD.

TRANSFUSION AND GROUPING. BRADMAN A “BLEEDER.” “The fact that Don Bradman, the famous Australian cricketer, is a ‘bleeder’ and, consequently, bruises much more easily than the average person, has had a ti'emendous bearing on the body-line controversy,” said Dr. T. AY. J. Johnson in an address on the blood to members of the Auckland Secondary School Masters’ Association. ‘When Bradman is hit by a cricket ball he gets a much bigger bruise than you or I would, and as a result the seriousness of an injury in! his case is magnified.” Bleeders were persons whose blood when shed had little power of coagulation, so that tririal injuries bled profusely, Dr. Johnson added. It was a hereditary constitutional anomaly occurring only in males, but boipg transmitted through females. It did not necassarily occur in all the males of a ‘bleeding’ family and it was not transmitted by any male except through a daughter.

“Blood transfusion has been practised for centuries, but it is only since the war that it has been used extensively,” continued Dr. Johnson. “All human bloods are not compatible. The blood of one person may suit a second, but not a third, as the red cells when introduced burst and are destroyed, producing a serious reaction ending possibly in death. “Human bloods are grouped into four groups according to these transfusion reactions and before a transfusion is made the blood of the donor must be tested against the blood of the recipient. This may be done directly, but more often the blood of the recipient is grouped and then a known suitable donor is used. Group four, to which 43 per cent, of people belong, is curious in that its members possess red cells which are not affected by the blood of any group. This type is called the universal donor and all large hospitals have a list of such individuas who are really professional donors. “Another interesting feature of blood grouping is that the grouping is hereditary. Offspring follow certain groupings governed by the groups to which the parents belong. This fact is of use in medi-co-legal eases where the paternity of a child is at issue.”