Summary of three lectures on transfusion : its physiology, pathology, and practice : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons / by William Hunter.

  • Hunter, William, 1861-1937.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Summary of three lectures on transfusion : its physiology, pathology, and practice : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons / by William Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    12/40 (page 8)
    body weight as compared with the 7 per cent, usually obtainable in health; and this blood contained 27.11 per cent, of solids with 4.21 grammes of nitrogen as compared with the 21 per cent, of solids containing about 3.2 grammes of nitrogen, usually found in healthy blood. Similar results were gained by Panum—by a method, however, not so free from objection as that of Tchiriew, on whose results, as on those of Forster, the greatest reliance can be placed. Wbat we have found to apply to pure blood applies in great degree to defibrinated blood. Its nutritive value is greater when given by the mouth than when transfused; this being due to the same cause, namely, that its red corpuscles—and they contain three-fourths of its organic constituents—continue to live for a certain time within the blood of their host. The slight rise in Qrms. Urea. the excretion of urea following on the injection of defibrinated blood is probably due to the disintegration of the proteids of the serum. This rise is never great, since the serum only contains'ia small percentage of organic constituents. In virtue of the change in the character of the proteids from the organised form in which they are present in the plasma to the unorganised form in which they are to be found in the serum, defibrinated blood may be re- garded as possessing more immediate nutritive value for the tissues than pure blood; but this is so small that it may be ne- glected altogether. Defibrination is often spoken of as harmless towards the blood ; defibrinated blood is often regarded as blood minus its fibrin. Defibrination is indeed harmless towards a great number of the