Factors affecting the coagulation time of blood. VI, The effect of rapid progressive hemorrhage upon the factors of coagulation / by Katherine R. Drinker and Cecil K. Drinker from the Laboratory of physiology in the Harvard Medical School and the Medical Clinic of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston.

  • Drinker, Katherine R.
Date:
1915
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Factors affecting the coagulation time of blood. VI, The effect of rapid progressive hemorrhage upon the factors of coagulation / by Katherine R. Drinker and Cecil K. Drinker from the Laboratory of physiology in the Harvard Medical School and the Medical Clinic of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bleeding at intervals of about twenty minutes was continued until the animal died. The later hemorrhages were of course smaller than the earlier ones, but varied in amount in different experiments. After the death of the animal the specimens of oxalated blood were centrifugalized for 10 minutes at high-speed, and the plasma pipetted off. A portion of the plasma from each specimen was used to make prothrombin determinations; a portion was used to* make antithrombin determinations; and a third portion (10 cc. if possible) was used to make fibrinogen determinations. In five experiments platelet counts10 were made before each hemorrhage. The methods of making prothrombin and antithrombin de¬ terminations were those described by Howell11 and reviewed by Drinker and Hurwitz in an article not yet published. The fibrinogen determinations were made by the heat coagulation method. II. EXPERIMENTAL DATA Nine experiments were done on cats and eight on rabbits. In every experiment in which the coagulation time as a whole decreased there was a decrease in the amount of anti thrombin. In all but two cases there was a steady fall in the fibrinogen content. The behavior of the prothrombin was irregular, on the whole tending first to increase slightly in amount and then to decrease. This irregularity in the prothrombin reaction depends to a certain extent upon the variations in antithrombin. With a fall in antithrombin one would expect a relative increase in prothrombin, though the absolute amount of the substance remained constant. In view of this fact the slight relative fall in prothrombin occurring in a number of our experiments in as¬ sociation with a fall in antithrombin, indicates a still greater absolute fall in the amount of prothrombin in the blood. The following protocol illustrates the method by which our results were obtained. In this case the amount of prothrombin increased slightly while the amounts of antithrombin and fibrin¬ ogen decreased. i° Wright, J. H. and Kinnicutt, R.: Journal of the American Medical Associa¬ tion, 1911, lvi, 1457. . 11 Howell, W. H.: Archives of Internal Medicine, 1914, xiii, 76.