Word: walder
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Right Track. To Britain's Surgeon Dennis Walder, the basic mistake in research on Raynaud's disease has been its concentration on the blood vessels involved instead of the blood itself. And when a study of 22 patients at Newcastle-upon-Tyne showed that in 21 cases their blood was thicker than that of healthy subjects, Walder felt sure he was on the right track. But he needed to know just what was causing the blood to change-and merely measuring its viscosity was no easy task...
Blood is such a complex of substances that its viscosity changes unpredictably with changing conditions. Walder and his colleagues built elaborate, Rube Goldberg devices to measure viscosity changes against such variables as temperature, pressure and the rate of blood flow...
Clotting Factor. To explain the higher blood viscosity of Raynaud's victims, the Walder group now indicts an excess of fibrinogen, one of the several substances involved in the blood-clotting mechanism, and a major factor in blood sludging. On this theory, the surgeons are treating 40 patients with intravenous drips of blood thinners ("plasma expanders") and anti-clotting drugs. The researchers claim no dramatic effects, but report cautiously that these treatments have improved the patients' peripheral circulation, "at least temporarily." In the more serious cases, they say, the treatments "were of considerable value...