STUDIES OF HEMOPHILIA

Abstract

No method of therapy has hitherto been devised which has proved effective in the long-continued control of hemophilia. The purpose of this paper is to report the effects of repeated infusions of normal plasma on the delayed blood coagulation and on the hemorrhagic tendency of this disease. Our observations on patients treated over a period of ten to twenty months indicate that this therapeutic approach provides a basis for amelioration of the bleeding tendency with significant rehabilitation of such patients. Most observers 1 have agreed that the addition of whole blood, plasma or certain plasma fractions to hemophilic blood results in the prompt reduction of the clotting time. In vivo the effect is said to last from two to six days. 2 This property of normal blood probably explains the effectiveness of transfusion in controlling acute hemorrhage in this disease. Whether or not the hemorrhagic phenomena in hemophilia are referable