Geoffrey Keynes

Name: Blood Transfusion
Author: Geoffrey Keynes

Summary

Geoffrey Keynes’s Blood Transfusion examines the medical practice of blood transfusion through historical, scientific, and clinical perspectives, tracing its development from seventeenth-century experimentation to early twentieth-century progress. The text explores themes such as donor motivation, blood group compatibility, and the dangers of mismatched transfusions, highlighting the essential role of serological testing in ensuring safety.

Keynes discusses the body's response to blood loss, the application of anticoagulants, and the hereditary transmission of blood types, presenting transfusion as both a life-saving procedure and a discipline demanding meticulous medical attention. The work combines empirical findings with practical recommendations, emphasizing the interplay between innovation and the persistent complexities of human physiology.

Quotes from Blood Transfusion (Geoffrey Keynes)

Geoffrey Keynes, Blood Transfusion

“ During the war, even when transfusion was being practised on a large scale, there was never any difficulty in finding volunteers among the men that were more lightly wounded. In addition to the genuine and ready response which many men would make at once to a call for help in a matter of life and death, there was the glamour of novelty and the feeling of satisfaction following an act of conscious heroism—for such the sacrifice of blood was held to be, the days having long been forgotten when as much blood was “let” in the treatment of almost any ailment. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Geoffrey Keynes, Blood Transfusion

“ Notoriety is fortunately seldom a motive for volunteering, and though paragraphs have occasionally appeared in the daily press with headings such as “Police Inspector’s Sacrifice,” this has probably not been done by the donor’s own wish. It is, after all, natural that to the mind of a layman the giving to another of so personal a possession as his blood should seem to be an act of heroism, and it is also natural that occasionally a man should feel some repugnance to taking part in a strange performance which he but dimly understands. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Geoffrey Keynes, Blood Transfusion

“ In the seventeenth century a happy ignorance took no account of them whatever. In the eighteenth century they were so greatly feared that transfusion fell into abeyance. In the nineteenth century it was realized that dangers existed, but they were imperfectly understood; when fatalities occurred, a partial knowledge explained them away more easily than our fuller knowledge can to-day, so that transfusion was practised in spite of them. At the beginning of the twentieth century, with the discovery of “blood groups,” it was thought that all danger had been eliminated. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Geoffrey Keynes, Blood Transfusion

“ The chances are, on the whole, that the blood of any donor chosen at random will not prove fatal to a given recipient; nevertheless, it must frequently happen that the transfusion without being fatal will be wasted, or to some degree detrimental. It is therefore evident that the existence of blood groups must be seriously regarded, and it is necessary to enter into a detailed consideration of their relations to one another and the symptoms which they may produce. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Geoffrey Keynes, Blood Transfusion

“ It is necessary, therefore, that everyone who performs a transfusion should be able to recognize the symptoms of a reaction as soon as it begins to appear, so that the transfusion may be at once discontinued. Sometimes the reaction between incompatible groups is so immediate and severe that death takes place almost at once. I did not myself perform any transfusions until after the period when blood-grouping tests had become a routine procedure, so that I have no personal experience of such unfortunate results. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Geoffrey Keynes, Blood Transfusion

“ It has often been remarked how much blood can be lost by a woman following the delivery of her child without any serious result; nevertheless, many deaths are occasioned every year by post-partum hæmorrhage, placenta prævia, and rupture of an ectopic gestation. Sometimes the bleeding is so rapid that there is no margin of time available for a transfusion unless all the facilities be immediately at hand. Short of this, transfusion is the ideal treatment, and the problem is a simple one, the relief of acute anæmia being the only object in view. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Geoffrey Keynes, Blood Transfusion

“ The number of red corpuscles in the blood from the capillaries of the ear or finger has been found to be invariably raised in patients suffering from shock. A blood count may show an increase up to seven million red cells per cmm. or even more. The blood in the venous circulation, however, of the same patient is more dilute, the count being less by one to two million red cells. When the shock is complicated by hæmorrhage, the blood count in the venous system will again be lower than that in the capillaries, but in both the counts will be less than if there were no hæmorrhage. ”

Geoffrey Keynes

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Quotes from Blood Transfusion (Geoffrey Keynes)

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