Various other devices for achieving the same result have been
elaborated by other workers, and attention may be drawn to those of
Elsberg and Bernheim, both of which are described in the book by
the latter on “Blood Transfusion.” During the war a simpler method
was introduced by Colonel Andrew Fullerton, who, working at a
Base Hospital in France, found that he could get good results by
employing a thin rubber tube with a small silver cannula at either
end. The apparatus was first coated on the inside with a thin layer
of paraffin wax, in order to discourage clotting within the tube,
and the cannulæ were introduced into the donor’s artery and the
recipient’s vein respectively. The blood could then flow freely
from one to the other. The fact that blood was being transmitted
was taken to be proved by the visible pulsation of the thin rubber
connecting-tube synchronously with the arterial pulsations. The
disappearance of this was assumed to be evidence that clotting had
occurred. This method was described by Colonel Fullerton to the
surgeons working at the Casualty Clearing Stations, where blood
transfusion was likely to be of most service, but it was never used
extensively. The coating of the inside of the tube with paraffin is
in itself an operation of some difficulty. Under conditions in which
any loss of time could not be permitted, success by this method was
not attained with sufficient certainty, and it was shortly afterwards
replaced by the more satisfactory methods described below. The most
recent work on direct transfusion has been done by J. M. Graham at
Edinburgh, who has however reached the conclusion that the technique
is always more difficult than that of indirect transfusion.
It can easily be seen, therefore, that all the known methods of
direct blood transfusion present great technical difficulty, which
renders the method unsuitable for general use. There are, in
addition, certain other objections to it of an obvious nature. It is,
in the first place, impossible to measure the amount of blood which
has passed from the donor to the recipient. Sometimes an indication
may be obtained from the evident improvement in the condition of the
patient, accompanied by the signs of loss of blood in the donor.
More often clotting takes place, unknown to the operator, at some
point, with the result that blood ceases to pass a considerable time
before the end of the operation, and the patient has consequently
received very much less blood than is supposed. It has been claimed
by Libman and Ottenberg that the amount of blood transferred may
be estimated by weighing the donor before and after the operation.
This presupposes that a very accurate weighing machine is easily
available, which usually is not the case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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