43 
INTRAVENOUS INJECTION OF MILK AS A SUBSTITUTE 
FOR TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD. 
Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas (New York Hospital Gazette ) 
read a paper on this subject before the New York Academy 
of Medicine. The operation was first performed by Dr. 
Hodder, of Toronto, about 1850, who employed it three times 
in the treatment of collapse in Asiatic cholera. Next, Dr. 
J. W. Howe, of New York, injected six ounces of goat's 
milk into the cephalic vein in a case of phthisis, but with 
no benefit to the patient. Dr. Howe also injected cow's 
milk into the veins of five dogs, and they all died. The ex¬ 
periments of Dr. Eugene Dupuy, made at the suggestion of 
Dr. Thomas, proved that milk could be injected without any 
baneful results. In these experiments it was found, that 
cases of intravenous injections of milk, which had been 
removed from the cow for an hour or two, invariably proved 
fatal, while the injection of perfectly fresh milk was fol¬ 
lowed by marked benefit. The method employed by Dr. 
Thomas may be best illustrated by relating briefly one of his 
cases. A healthy cow was driven into the yard of the 
hospital, and eight and a half ounces of milk drawn from 
her udder into a porcelain dish, surrounded with warm water, 
were permitted to flow 7 slowly into the median basilic vein 
of the patient from a glass funnel, to which was attached an 
india-rubber tube and a suitable nozzle, to be introduced into 
the opening in the blood-vessel. A rigor followed the 
operation; the temperature rose to 104° F., but these sym¬ 
ptoms soon passed off, and the patient, who w r as moribund 
at the time of the operation, rallied, and left the hospital 
in about three weeks. Dr. Thomas has employed it in seven 
injections, and arrives at the following conclusions:—1. In¬ 
jection of milk into the circulation in place of blood is a 
perfectly feasible, safe, and legitimate operation. 2. None 
but healthy milk drawn from the udder of the cow, within 
a few minutes of its introduction into the circulation, should 
be employed. It should be tested with litmus paper, and, 
if found to be acid, should be made alkaline by the addition 
of carbonate of soda. 3. A glass funnel, with an india- 
rubber tube and a suitable pipe attached, was much better 
and safer than a more elaborate apparatus. 4. Intravenous 
injection of milk was an infinitely easier operation to perform 
than transfusion of blood. 5. Intravenous injection of milk, 
like that of blood, was commonly followed by a chill and 
