DONATIONS OF BLOOD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12775, 20 October 1919, Page 6

DONATIONS OF BLOOD.

ONE HUNDRED VOLUNTEERS AT LONDON HOSPITAL.

Advices from Washington concerning the uses of canned or “potted” blood as a practical article of surgical value are confirmed by statements made to a “Daily Chronicle ” representative by surgeons in London. Dotted* blood, however, is only an emergency idea,” said a surgeon at the London Hospital. “It would _ not be used in bis hospital. Here, if a person has met with a street accident, for example, and needs a largo quantity of blood, everything is prepared beforehand for his use.

“Wo have about a hundred persons on our list who have agreed to become donors to the hospital, not of money, but of their blood.

“These per.-ons, who nro volunteers have nil been registered, and grouped by blood tests, and are. ready to give their services day or night; so that in any case of immediate urgency, if we find, for instance, that the patient’s blond is group 3, we have merely to wire or telephone to Mr in that group, saying we want bis blood, and he obliges with a donation, which is gratefully received.” With regard to the canning process, this development of field surgery, particulars of which have been issued from tho surgeon general’s department, is the result of an attempt in tho United States and amongst tho Allied doctors to reduce battle casualties from wound hemorrhage. Before heavy fighting quantities of blood serum, preserved in smooth-surfaced sterilised vessels sometimes paraffin flasks and cans have been drawn from persons, kept on ice, and, in emergency, substituted for direct transfusion until tho patient was brought down to a base hospital.