When all remedies have been tried in vain the question of transfusion of blood arises. As a substitute for the intravenous transfusion the blood has been injected into the peritoneum: this has been practised in Italy with success.94 The subcutaneous injection has also been used, and lately the inhalation of a spray of blood has been recommended.95 In four or five instances intravenous injection has succeeded, but in the majority of cases it has proved useless. Von Ott's96 interesting researches show that the injected blood-corpuscles and albuminous materials always undergo destruction in the blood, and a 6/10 per cent. solution of common salt seems to answer just as well, and is much more available and less dangerous.
94 Practitioner, vol. xxxi.; Ponfick, Berl. klin. Wochenschrift, 1879.
95 Med. News, 1885, i.
96 Virchow's Archiv, Bd. xciii.
The injection of milk, as first practised in cholera by my preceptors, Bovell and Hodder97 of Toronto, has also been employed in anæmia (Pepper, Wulfberg).
97 Canadian Journal of Science, 1854.
LEUKÆMIA.
DEFINITION.—A disease characterized by a great and persistent increase of the colorless corpuscles of the blood, associated with enlargement of the spleen, lymphatic elements, and bone-marrow.
SYNONYM.—Leucocythemia (Bennett).