Emergency blood transfusion service (report)
1939 1939 1930s 5 pages - 2 - Domestic type Refrigerators As stated above these are not entirely suitable for blood storage for several reasons. They are, however, in fairly common use in hospitals chiefly because no other small cabinet at anything like such a low price has been on the market. T...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
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[1939]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/BBB10E67-5E10-4613-B378-CA625B56481D http://hdl.handle.net/10796/10CBE8AA-7DAE-4F8B-81DE-BF3D43BE3118 |
| Summary: | 1939
1939
1930s
5 pages
- 2 - Domestic type Refrigerators As stated above these are not entirely suitable for blood storage for several reasons. They are, however, in fairly common use in hospitals chiefly because no other small cabinet at anything like such a low price has been on the market. The chief disadvantages of the domestic type cabinet are as under:- (1) The cooling coil has to operate at an average temperature below 0°C (32°F) so that it is possible to freeze blood if it is placed too close to the coil. Freezing blood renders it quite useless. (2) The machine has to be switched off periodically to allow the frost accumulation on the coil to melt off. This results in a rise in temperature in the cabinet, and consequently of the contents also, which is highly undesirable. (3) Refrigeration in the cabinet depends on convection currents set up through heavy cold air leaving the cooling coil and descending to the bottom of the cabinet. This type of gravity air circulation is essentially sluggish, and there is, therefore, a considerable difference in temperature between the top and bottom of the cabinet. In many cabinets it is found that while the average temperature may be suitable for blood storage, there are, at the same time, points in the cabinet where the temperature is far outside the safe range. Moreover, since many pathologists desire an average temperature as low as 2.2°C (36°F), cabinets of this type kept at such a temperature will definitely offer an increased danger of freezing the blood. (4) Because gravity air circulation is so sluggish, the time taken by the air passing over the bottles to cool the blood down to temperature is much longer than is desirable. Commercial type food storage Refrigerators In general it can be said that almost every type of cold store installed in hospitals for foodstuffs and also mortuary chambers suffer all of the above disadvantages. Probably over 95% of such installations suffer from (1) and (2) above. Many will have air-circulating fans, especially in cold storage rooms, but such fans are not at all likely, except in dairy rooms, to circulate sufficient air to meet the requirements of a blood storage unit.
292/845.2/4/51 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |