Peacetime Plasma

Throughout the war, millions of blood donors faithfully kept their appointments, rain or shine, sick or well, drunk or sober.* Many of them now wonder when, and if, they will be called on to give blood again. Won't civilians, at least, still need blood?

Civilian demand is up because during the war doctors got used to giving blood as a post-surgery routine. But there were still few peacetime plasma plans, and no great rush to make any, partly because the Army has released 1,000,000 pints of blood to the Red Cross for civilian use. In New York City 150 hospitals and the Medical Society have formed an exchange which is a variation of prewar blood banking: anyone needing blood must pay $15 a pint or get two friends to give a pint each to the pool.

The only places where wartime blood donors have yet been asked to continue are Michigan and southeastern Massachusetts. Michigan's donors never stopped, are now bled under the auspices of the State Health Department and the Red Cross. In Massachusetts, by citizens' request, a Red Cross truck will start collecting at local chapters, around November 15. Municipal laboratories will process the blood, and hospitals and doctors can get it free; a doctor can keep a supply in his icebox if he likes. If the system works, it will be expanded to the rest of Massachusetts. National headquarters has notified Red Cross chapters all over the country that they may collect blood if altruistic citizens wish to go on giving their blood.

* Blood centers usually excluded drunken donors just to avoid rowdiness; the amount of alcohol that can be transferred by plasma ranges from slight to zero.

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