Blood Program in World War II

Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1955. Hardcover. Very Good+. Volume in the official history of the Medical Department of the US Army in World War II. "The story of the blood program in World War II is admirably told in this latest volume of the history of the Medical Department of the US. Army. The younger generation of clinicians and pathologists accept blood transfusion and the accumulated relevant information as an obvious part of current medical knowledge. But it was only in World War II that the value of whole-blood and plasma transfusions became so intensely and clearly demonstrated. In World War II, compared with the 1914-1918 war, the mortality rate of wounded men who reached forward hospitals alive was more than halved. The liberal use of blood and plasma played a major role in achieving this reduction. Under the stress of war, the problems of collection and distribution, of laboratory and clinical techniques, of indications and uses, loomed urgent, vast, inexorable. It was the stress of war which enabled us to make such enormous progress in medical science. Large octavo (26 cm), xxxvii, 922 pp. Maroon cloth binding. From private collection. Small ding to upper edge of top board. Minor soiling and spotting to edges of book block from shelf wear. No ownership ink. Scarce.