Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 222, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1917 — SAVING LIVES OF SOLDIERS [ARTICLE]

SAVING LIVES OF SOLDIERS

Suggestion That Women Make Sacrifices by Contributing Blood in Cases of Emergency. The suggestion that women make the heroic sacrifice of contributing blood to be used in transfusions to save the lives of wounded soldiers has been made’by Capt. William B. Orear, examining medical officer attached to the army station at Savannah, Ga. “This,” stated Captain Orear, “is the most practical sacrifice that the women of the country can make at the present time. I® the emergencies of military surgery, the direct transfusion of blood often acts as a lifesaving procedure, even in desperate cases apparently doomed to death from exsanguination. Largely on account of certain difficulties in the practical application of the method, it has not been generally adopted, although operating surgeons are agreed as to its value find efficiency. “The inestimable advantage of the transfusion of human blood, in the cases of profuse hemorrhage, which are unfortunately so common in the experience of all wflr surgeons, has recently again been emphasized by Primrose and Ryerson, in England. The three great virtues which this metnoa comoincs nrc, Dneny, increased coagulability of the patient’s blood, improved local resistance of his tissues to infection, probable survival and continued function of the transfused (properly selected) corpuscles. Transfusion of blood from a tested donor, during or directly after an abdominal operation for bullet wound, acts not only as an auxiliary to the surgeon’s efforts, but may turn the scale in favor of the patient’s life.”