It has recently become one of the major difficulties to obtain sufficient amount of heparinized blood for extracorporeal circulation in the field of open heart surgery. The auther carried out several kinds of experimental study and hematological investigations were made on these ploblems as follows: the maximal preservation period of heparinized blood, evaluation of synthetized dextran sulphate as an anticoagulant reagent, mannitol added blood minimizing hemolysis during transportation, addition of dextran for blood preservation and preservation of blood with dextran added.
The conclusions induced by the series of the study were: 1) Considering the diminution of titer of the anticoagulant reagents the maximal effective period was three days and the safety period was up to 48 hours when the amount of anticoagulant reagent was properly increased for the group in which 10mgm of heparin was contained in 100ml of blood. 2) Noticed no significant difference between dextran and glucose solution when these solutions were added to heparinized blood. 3) Anticoagulability of dextran sulphate was very similar to heparin and it was almost equivalent to heparin if the preservation period was within three days. 4) Less hematological change was observed with glucose solution than dextran when added to blood with dextran sulphate. Rather remarkable hematological alteration was seen after three days as dextran was chosen. 5) Only minimal hematological change was noted within 24 hours when heparin was prescribed 5mgm per 100ml of blood. Therefore, this prescription was good enough for clinical purpose if the blood was used as soon as possible after beeing drawn. 6) Mannitol did not produce any remarkable change from the point of blood preservation. 7) No possible way was found to prolong the preservation period of heparinized or dextran sulphate added blood.

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A 38-year-old healthy Japanese woman Mrs. N. has as much B and H substances in her saliva as have normal B individuals, but the B antigen in her red cells is very weak and H is undetectable.
Her serum contains weak anti-H. It was considered that Mrs. N. 's blood might be called Bh at the phenotypical level; the suffix “h” is intended to indicate a phenotype lacking the H substance.

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