Blood Loss

Blood Loss:

• Blood loss has always been a majoy problem in surgery. Bleeding obstructs the view of the surgeon, thus making their operations less efficient and/or reliable, and furthermore leading to an increase in the chance that the patient will die.
• There is also the problem that if a patient loses to much blood, his/her blood pressure drops, which drastically affects the heart, thus leading the body to become unable to function and the patient dies. 

Controlling Blood Loss:

• During the 17th century, there were experiments with blood transfusions using blood from animals (mainly sheep) as well as from humans. Although patients occasionally survived, the majority of occasions led to the patient's death, and the procedure was banned. 
• Once aneasthetics and antiseptics made it possible to perform more complex operations, there was a renewed drive to find a way of dealing with the issues…