SYNTHETIC BLOOD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21538, 9 January 1932, Page 13

SYNTHETIC BLOOD

A MEDICAL MARVEL Using a formula recently developed by a French scientist’working in Indo-China, some interesting operations, involving the use of a synthetic blood injected directly into the veins of patients who, for one reason or another, have lost such quantities of their own blood that they are on the point of death, or in a very much run-down condition, are being performed with what are said to be wonderful results by an American surgeon. The experimenter is Dr John E. Summers, who in emergencies has used this synthetic blood in place of blood transfusions, although he considers that nothing fully can take the place of good pure blood. In an article in a recent issue of the Nebraska State Medical Journal, Dr Summers states that he has used this synthetic blood in 19 cases, and in every one the results have been “strikingly favourable.” The discovery is so recent that none of the great American laboratories had even heard of the synthetic blood when the Omaha surgeon wrote to them for a supply. They did not take very kindly to the idea, and it was only by insistence that he was successful in having two of the big laboratories make him a supply of the artificial blood from the formula he furnished. Finally this was made up and furnished gratuitously for experimental purposes only and not to be commercialised. Eventually Dr Summers was able to obtain a small quantity from Paris as made by the representatives of the discoverer.

Following the receipt of these supplies, there has Been a number of operations which have caused tremendous interest among medical men. Here is one of these cases, taken partly from the police reports and partly from the reports of the hospital where the operation was performed.

A professional dancer and cabaret entertainer in a fight with a rival received a dagger cut of the left lung and heart. Death usually results from an injury to the heart, but in this case the woman was not dead when Dr Summers arrived. However, she had lost so much blood that death was imminent from that cause. Dr Summers sewed up the cut in the heart and stopped further loss of blood. A transfusion was not possible. There was not time for a transfusion even if an individual with matched blood could have been found upon such short notice. Death was too near. So blood was injected into the woman’s veins. The effect was almost magical. Improvement was immediate, and the woman grew stronger. Pneumonia developed, but the synthetic blood gave her sufficient strength to overcome this complication. In two weeks she was convalescent and out of danger. Dr Summers credits the synthetic blood with the cure. In the Douglas County Hospital, of which Dr Summers is chief of staff, there were several advanced cases of cancer. Because of their weakened conditions these patients could not be operated upon, so they were given injections of the synthetic blood and their improvement was so great that the necessary operations were carried out. The synthetic blood is not a cancer cure, by any means, but it has given these patients sufficient strength to withstand the operations. In the same hospital there were three desperate emergency cases of internal haemorrhage of women, and another such case in the University Hospital of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, where Dr Summers is professor of clinical surgery. Dr Summers operated upon all four, injecting the synthetic blood directly into the veins of those patients, and the four lives were saved. The saving of these lives can, in a great measure, only be attributed to the use of this solution. More and more members of the medical profession are coming to realise the importance of blood transfusion in the saving of life (writes T. R. Porter in the San Francisco Chronicle). This synthetic blood is known technically ns Normet solution, named after Dr Normet, the French scientist_ who developed the formula. The solution can be carried around in an ampule (a sterile bottle), and it does not deteriorate, for it is sterile. It is not expensive, especially when compared with the price of the natural blood of a donor. It “mixes” with the blood of any patient, and no “ matching ” or “ typing ” is necessary.