CLINICAL CONTROL OF CHRONIC HEMORRHAGIC STATES IN CHILDHOOD

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Abstract
Rational procedures for arresting hemorrhage are of ancient heritage. Homer relates with pride many of our current methods then applied to bleeding gods and fallen heroes of Greek mythology. While these methods were more effective for the inanimate gods than for the human heroes, the same therapeutic attempts still remain routine. Hippocrates (400 B. C.) applied styptics, ice, compression and elevation with better reasoning than result in the treatment of bleeding wounds. Celsus (20 A. D.) introduced cauterization, excision and ligature as surgical means of treating hemorrhage. But these procedures were used only in emergencies, because bleeding was considered an earthly means of bodily purification. Local measures of treating hemorrhage persisted until the nineteenth century, when Blundell (1824) first transfused man from a human donor. Thus did a whole century pass before the therapeutic value of transfusion was turned from the metaphysical speculation of rejuvenation to rational physiology. It was

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