A REVIEW OF A GROUP OF PROFESSIONAL DONORS

Statements in the literature concerning the subsequent condition of patients who have acted as donors are not accompanied by statistical data. Minot and Lee, 1 in their article on the transfusion of blood, state that several transfusions of 500 c.c. may be given by a single donor, at intervals of one week or more, without apparent disturbance. After 500 c.c. has been given, the donor will feel well within a few hours. A loss of 1,000 c.c. may cause lassitude for two or three days. The blood volume in normal persons is made up rapidly from the fluid reserve of the body, and the number of erythrocytes returns to normal within a few weeks. The inadvisability of using students and nurses as donors has been discussed in the Lancet 2 and in the Guy's Hospital Gazette . 3 It is rather surprising that, aside from these discussions, nothing has appeared in