Word: plasma
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Safer Blood. Stockpiling whole blood and plasma is now known to be risky: some recipients get a serious liver disease called homologous serum jaundice. One donor who carries the jaundice virus in his blood might infect a pool given by 5,000 donors. Drs. Frank W. Hartman and George H. Mangun of Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital think they have found a way to sterilize the blood and kill the virus without making the blood harmful or useless. They have used nitrogen mustard, a war gas, and are now experimenting with a chemical called dimethyl sulphate. To prove...
...volunteered by Mike's father, were sewn onto the flesh. Later, when sewing became impossible because of Mike's weakened condition Dr. Young stuck skin grafts on with thrombin, a clotting agent which served as a sort of human glue. Through the weeks there were over 100 plasma transfusions, eight skin graftings, endless vitamin and protein injections, billions of units of penicillin...
...hospital and District Health Department footed hospital bills (already upward of $3,500); laboratories ran expensive tests free; the Red Cross furnished the necessary plasma. Six strangers, all servicemen, volunteered skin grafts. In December, when Mike was at his lowest, the simultaneous arrival of four enormous birthday cakes from well-wishers gave his morale a badly needed boost...
...paddyfield on the village edge, stretcher bearers brought in wounded for relay to Tsaolaochi. About a dozen men in various states of shock and pain lay on the ground. Fresh bandages reeking of alcohol seemed their only care-no plasma or morphine. They suffered stoically. A battalion commander, his throat and shoulder torn by shrapnel, retched helplessly. Another man had a broken ankle bare in the chill air, propped up on a wad of straw...
During the war, the need for blood plasma was given a great deal of publicity. Today, thousands of lives are still being saved by plasma, only the fact is not so widely publicized. Inadequate supplies, however, have sent the price up to around 25 dollars for plasma equivalent to one pint of whole blood, and often a transfusion will run from 15 to 30 pints. To alleviate the situation, and to provide free plasma for charity cases, the Red Cross is asking for volunteer blood donations from colleges and other organizations. On top of that, just one donation to this...