"$50 a Quart" Offer Induces Many Medical School Students to Part With Their Fresh, Clean Blood

Blood pays part of the expenses of a good many students at the Medical School. At least over a hundred of the students make a regular practice of supplying blood to various hospitals in Boston, according to Medical School authorities.

Twenty-five dollars a pint is the market price for fresh, clean human blood, which is sold by physicians and surgeons and used to replenish the blood supply of patients who have lost a good deal of the fluid during operations or through sickness. A human being can safely spare a pint out of the eight quarts of blood in his body once in six months, according to the doctor in charge at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Some men have been known to supply as much as two quarts during the six month period, but the doctor did not recommend the practice either as a method of producing a steady income or as a way to keep in the pink of good health.

"Giving the blood isn't painful", he said. "All that is done is to stick a needle into the donor's arm and pump ous as much of the fluid as is needed. About a pint can be taken with perfect safety and a quart has been removed without ill effects, but if the larger amount is taken from some persons they notice had symptoms, such as tiring easily and getting short of breath. If they drink a good deal of water and rest completely for a day or so they will recover entirely."

The doctor did not, however, advise anyone to take up blood supplying as a life profession. "Donors must always be in perfect health, without the slightest trace of disease. We examine a specimen of the blood of everyone who wishes to give some for transfusions, and if it is not absolutely satisfactory we refuse to permit them to supply any at all.

"And then, even if a man's blood is clean, we cannot inject it into the veins of any patient. The blood of different people varies greatly in its chemical composition, and if the wrong kind of blood is put in a patient it is very likely to kill him immediately. So we have to examine the blood of both donor and patient very carefully to make sure that no such catastrophe could possibly occur."

When the doctor was asked whether other persons besides the medical students were called upon to act as donors, he said that they were always selected from among the nurses in the hospital and the medical students. "You can imagine" he said, "what a motley crowd of bums and tramps we would have applying if we advertised that we would buy blood at 50 dollars a quart. No, thank you, we have quite enough to supply the demand right here."