Abstract
The coagulation time of the blood in hereditary hemophilia fluctuates in an irregular manner from day to day. Only very pronounced alterations are therefore of value as a guide to the effect of any particular method of treatment. The variations shown in Table I were observed in cases who were not subjected to any treatment. In many instances the changes observed are well beyond the error of the method which was used. Five cubic centimeters of blood were withdrawn from the median basilic vein through a short oiled needle into two or more test-tubes, and the average interval of time required until coagulation had advanced sufficiently to allow of the complete inversion of the tubes without spilling the contents was taken as the coagulation time. The temperature was 37° C. Normal blood requires about 13 minutes to coagulate under these conditions. Parallel observations with another method showed that reliable results could be obtained with blood from skin puncture when certain details in the manner of collecting the blood were observed. 1
Variations in coagulation time which were not greater than those illustrated in Table I were noted under the administration by mouth of calcium lactate, sodium chloride and of large quantities of raw beef juice. The removal from a vein of 60-70 c.c. of blood once a week had no effect.
No immediate effect was produced by the intravenous injection of normal horse serum and of antidiphtheritic serum. These sera were all five or more weeks old. In one case a marked prolongation of coagulation time was found three weeks after an intravenous injection of horse serum, but since successive observations were not made during this interval, it is not certain that this was the result of the serum injection.
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