Skin & Bone

Two new blood-plasma extracts, one like skin, the other like bone, were announced a fortnight ago by the Harvard Medical School's Department of Physical Chemistry. The laboratory work was done under Dr. Edwin Joseph Cohn, who perfected the extraction of "measles globulin" and other human-blood components for the Army & Navy (TIME, June 5). The new extracts, both plastics:

P: A thin, elastic film which can be used as a surface dressing for burns. It can be impregnated with sulfa drugs or penicillin, will stay pliant and moist while the wound is still raw, so that removing it is not painful. When the wound has healed, the plastic dries and drops off like a scab.

P: A dark brown substance, almost as hard as a rib, which slowly softens when planted in the body. Uses have not yet been found for it, but Dr. Cohn is convinced that everything in human blood is useful.

The new extracts, not yet made in quantity, bring to about 20 the number of substances Dr. Cohn can extract from plasma. But, says the laboratory (Dr. Cohn is never quoted): "The number of components that may be identified remains far greater than the number of fractions that it has been convenient to separate." Or, in plain English: Dr. Cohn knows of many more blood components which he could extract if he felt like it.

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