Prefers Bloodless Therapy

Dr. J. D. Thompson, in the Southern Medical Journal, May, 1957, says that the use of oral ferrous sulphate is to be preferred to blood transfusions in building up the hemoglobin level of anemic women patients in preparation for operations for diseases peculiar to their sex. Especially is this so, he states, because of the “unfortunate fatalities from blood transfusions which have occurred.”

He lists five cases of severe anemia that were helped by this type of treatment “to show that even the markedly anemic patient does not always require transfusion for preoperative correction of anemia if sufficient time is available. Of course, many other patients with less severe degrees of anemia have been given iron orally and have thus avoided the dangers of one or more blood transfusions.” As for the disadvantages of oral iron therapy, they are few and mild.