Preservation of Red Blood Cells for Hemolytic Reactions

Abstract

In 1916, Rous and Turner 1 demonstrated that red cells of several mammalian species could be kept alive in vitro and successfully used in transfusions up to 14 days. Two general methods were suggested: (a) The blood was drawn into Ringer-citrate solution and the cells washed in Ringer's solution containing 0.125 to 0.25 fc of gelatine. The washed cells were then preserved in an isotonic solution of saccharose or dextrose in Locke' s solution, (b) The blood was drawn into a mixture of isotonic sodium citrate and isotonic dextrose and preserved without washing. The latter method was adopted by Robertson 2 for the preservation of large quantities of human blood for transfusion. The present paper is concerned with the preservation of red cells primarily for use in complement fixation, hemotoxin titration and the enrichment of culture mediums. The references in the paper are entirely to experiments with sheep red cells; however, very similar results have been obtained with rabbit and human cells.