Medicine: Dropsy Donors

In spite of large corps of professional blood donors, and well-stocked blood banks, hospitals often need blood for emergency transfusions. Last week Dr. Harry Davis of the University of Tennessee Medical School at Memphis, reported that he had used a common medical waste product, ascitic fluid, as a successful substitute for blood.

Ascitic fluid is a clear yellow serum, similar to blood, but more watery, containing neither red nor white blood corpuscles. It collects in the swollen abdomens of persons suffering from dropsy, a condition resulting from cirrhosis of the liver or certain types of heart disease. To relieve pain the patient’s abdomen is tapped, and the fluid drained out. Often as much as 410 ounces is withdrawn, and the patient is glad to get rid of it.

The fluid, said Dr. Davis, cannot be given to patients who need red blood corpuscles, but only to those who suffer from shock due to loss of blood and who need to maintain a normal amount of fluid in circulation. It must be sterilized, filtered and typed, just like ordinary blood. Transfusions have been given to nine patients suffering from such diverse ailments as kidney infections, alcoholism, malaria, cancer and gunshot wounds. One man even acted as his own dropsy donor, when Dr. Davis removed 34 ounces of fluid from his stomach, promptly pumped them back into his arm.

Ascitic fluid is not so good as whole blood, because it is not so rich, but it has two important advantages: 1) it can be obtained “without cost”; 2) it can be safely refrigerated for periods as long as five months, while ordinary blood deteriorates within two weeks. “Thus it can be moved long distances, as in the case of a war, so long as it is safely cooled,” concluded Dr. Davis.