Recent Trends in Blood Transfusion and Resuscitation

the circulatory blood volume (oligaemia) is the most important factor in the production of wound shock, and that circulatory collapse occurs if a patient's effective blood volume is reduced below 70 per cent of normal. Grant and Reeve conclude that the most valuable signs in determining the degree of reduction in blood volume are the amount of tissue damage, and the systolic blood pressure. They regard the patient's own hand as the unit of measurement, and observed that circulatory blood loss was approximately 10 per cent for each " hand " of tissue damage. Large wounds equivalent to a tissue damage of three to five hands