Studies of Canine Cadaver Blood

With increasing demands on the blood banks of our hospitals resulting from the development of more complex elective surgery, the extension of open heart surgery even to community hospitals and the unfortunately ever present threat of mass civilian or military disaster, one should evaluate every additional means of suitable blood replacement or plasma volume expansion. When one of us (R. A. D.) D.) had the opportunity of visiting the Soviet Union twice during the past few years, it was of interest that the Sklifosovskiy Institute in Moscow had depended for 30 years on cadaver blood as a major means of maintaining their clinical blood bank.

Upon reviewing the literature it was disappointing to note that the several reports in English by Russian surgeons^1-5 failed to give the definite formulae of their storage medium or an account of critical studies of the cadaver blood during storage in vitro or after