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...

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