Remarks on the force used in transfusion and on the selection of fluids for injecting into the veins / by W. W. Wagstaffe.

  • Wagstaffe, W. W. (William Warwick), 1843-1910.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the force used in transfusion and on the selection of fluids for injecting into the veins / by W. W. Wagstaffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    that the repeated injections of warm salines will destroy this poison, nor is it likely that they will make up for the injury done to the corpuscles themselves, which must be looked upon as the active elements of change in the nourishment of the tissues. But these injections will give temporary relief by supplying the blood with fluid to replace that which is lost, and by giving that warmth which the arrested healthy changes of nutrition have failed to maintain. Something more, however, is wanted, and this is undoubtedly the point to which our attention must be directed in preparing artificial fluids for transfusion. We have to find something which shall not only at once give warmth, and so relax capillaries, which, in the skin at least, are firmly contracted, and promote chemical change in the vessels and tissues ; we have to find something which shall also give the means of sustaining that warmth. Such material must, I think, be looked for in one of these classes of compounds—the albuminous, the saccharine, or the oleaginous, or of course, in a combination of these. Given such a material we may reasonably hope for success, for if animal heat can be maintained by such artificial means, time will be given for the destruction or elimination of the poison producing the fatal symptoms. Transfusion of such material in this class of cases would effect this—it would supply fluid, it would supply immediate warmth, and it would afford the means of sustaining that warmth. Character of Fluid Transfused.—The requirements for this fluid appear to be (i) warmth ; (2) power of sustaining animal heat (by combustion in the blood, and especially in connexion with respiration) ; (3) miscibility with the blood already in the system without injurious effects, either mechanically, as by coagulation, or physiologically by what we may term poisoning. We have especially, to remember that the fluid must be readily procurable and simple, not requiring elaboiate pie- paration. In cases where transfusion is resorted to there is usually no time to be lost, and if it be possible to employ satisfactorily some fluid which is to be found always at hand, it may be the means of preserving life. I his consideration compels us to bear in mind two or three natural productions