Changes in the coagulation mechanism following wounding and resuscitation with stored blood; a study of battle casualties in Korea.

suscitation and surgery and during the first days of convalescence. The one stage prothrombin time was employed as one index of hepat-ic function. It was observed that following wounding and resuscitation with stored blood, prothrombin activity fell to about 50 per cent of normal. This was followed, within four days, by a return toward normal which persisted one to three days. Following this rise, prothrombin activity again fell. In some of the most severely wounded the primary rise toward normal was small or absent, and the primary fall and secondary fall blended into one period of decreased prothrombin activity before the late rise to normal began on about the tenth day. It was the purpose of the present study to define these changes in prothrombin activity.