New type plasma filter will aid in prevention of fatal wound shock
✍ Scribed by R.H.O.
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1942
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 123 KB
- Volume
- 234
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
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✦ Synopsis
of 78o to 80°F. maximum dry bulb, with 45 per cent. relative humidity, and an allowed variation of 5 per cent.
R. H. O.
New Type PlasmaFilter Will Aid in Prevention of Fatal Wound Shock.--Recourse to one of the new products of American Industry--glass in soft flexible fiber form--has effected an important improvement in the performance of the apparatus employed to give blood plasma transfusions to soldiers wounded in battle. A short strip of tape, woven of the new glass fibers, is inserted in the flexible tubingof the apparatus to filter out of the blood plasma any foreign particles which might get into it, and which, if they entered the blood stream, might cause serious complications. Military medicine is relying heavily upon blood plasma transfusions to save the lives of many soldiers that in past wars would inevitably have died from shock following upon their wounds. Shock occurs when damage to human tissue permits the fluid portion of the blood, with its proteins, to leak out from the fine blood vessels into the tissue. If the leakage continues until there is not enough fluid left to circulate the red blood cells that carry life-giving oxygen, the brain, kidneys, heart and other vital organs cease to function, and death ensues. Throughout the history of modern war shock has been responsible for the death of more soliders able to reach first-aid stations than any other cause, but this loss of fluid, or plasma, can now be corrected by the injection of human plasma which has previously been collected, prepared in proper form, and stored for use when required. The injected plasma replaces the lost fluid, enabling the oxygen-carrying red cellsof the blood to resume transporting the oxygen without which life is impossible. Prior to the development of the new glass fiber filter, filters made of a number of different materials were tried out in the transfusion apparatus. A fine wire mesh of stainless steel proved unsuitable because it required bulky housing. The fibers of gauze filters swelled when wet, slowing down or stopping the passage of the fluid. The close weaveof the Fiberglas filters effectively blocks even minute particles but permits free passage of the fluid since, being glass, the fibers do not swell under moisture. The Fiberglas filters are sterile, and can be resterilized for repeated use. The glass fiber filter represents, of course, only one of the many technical devices and methods which have made it possible to use blood plasma transfusions freely and effectively in military medicine. The sum total of these advances has given medicine a weapon that fights death at its source, and one that can be employed close up to the battle lines. Plasma,