The prevention of blood clotting by Dakin's sodium hypochlorite solution

Abstract

It has been shown by Austin and Taylor that Dakin's solution dissolves necrotic tissue in wounds and washes away blood clots. Sweet has stated that the dressing of wounds with this solution favored hemorrhage from them. We made experiments to determine whether the solution prevented the clotting of blood in vitro and wish to record some of the facts observed.We found that Dakin's solution of sodium hypochlorite added to blood in vitro was able to prevent clotting. If blood of a dog is drawn directly into Dakin's solution in the proportion of one part of Dakin's to ten of blood, clotting is usually prevented entirely. In a few instances such blood showed the formation of small, soft clots after standing several days. In no case was there any sign of clotting when as much as 1.5 c.c. of Dakin's to 10 c.c. of blood were used, even after standing as much as four weeks. There is a slight difference between the blood of different species; thus cat blood is prevented from clotting by rather smaller amounts than ...