21st Century Necromancer-Chapter 457 453: Blood (Please Subscribe, Request Monthly Tickets)
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After checking on his patients in the non-isolation area of the ICU, Chen Yu finally returned to his office.
Although he was very concerned about the epidemic, as a surgeon Chen Yu had no place in this matter, and it certainly did not require his intervention.
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As the most top-ranked university hospital in all Japan, Tokyo University Medical School Hospital is renowned for its high standards in surgery just as much as in internal medicine. Yamamoto Hisae, the head of the Department of Internal Medicine, may focus much of her efforts on struggles for power and influence, but that doesn't mean she's abandoned her professional duties as a doctor.
On the contrary, it is because of her sufficient capabilities that she enjoys her position. Especially as a woman, both her skills and strength are indispensable.
With such a powerful, capable, and well-connected person in charge, Chen Yu did not believe he could handle the situation any better than she could. Perhaps in facing the virus itself, Chen Yu could use his knowledge of necromancy to defeat the virus, but that's not the most critical issue in dealing with an epidemic.
The main tasks in responding to a major infectious disease are to block the pathways of the virus's transmission and to treat the patients. Although deciphering the virus, developing specific drugs, and vaccines are also important, they are not the top priority.
To handle these tasks, experience, tactics, and courage are all indispensable.
In these respects, Chen Yu did not think he was a match for Yamamoto Hisae, who had a firm grasp of the various departments in the hospital's internal medicine division. Instead of forcibly intervening and causing a slew of problems, it was better to watch and wait. Should she need help, stepping in then would be the best option.
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However, even after returning to his office, Chen Yu still felt restless. He placed Jounouchi Hiromi's thesis on his desk, intending to focus on his work to calm his thoughts.
Jounouchi Hiromi's thesis mainly discussed the issue of blood transfusions between different blood types, a problem that has been plaguing the medical community ever since blood types were discovered.
As is well known, blood comes in several types, and the ABO blood group system is the one commonly encountered in transfusions. Within the ABO blood group system, type O blood is considered the "universal donor" and can be given to anyone; whereas type AB blood is the "universal recipient" and can receive transfusions from any blood type.
In reality, however, aside from the ABO blood types, in recent years there has been scarcely any cross-type transfusion between different blood types. Even within the ABO system, transfusions are almost always conducted between the same blood types and almost all medical institutions worldwide practice this same-type transfusion policy.
Only in very urgent situations, when there isn't enough time to test for blood type, blood from the "universal donor," type O, is used for transfusion, but this is extremely rare. In Japan, for instance, there's probably only about one such case nationwide each year.
What people usually refer to as blood type concerns the specific antigens on the surface of red blood cells, and the red blood cell ABO and Rh blood group systems are most closely related to clinical practice and most familiar to people.
The ABO blood group is determined according to the presence of antigen A and antigen B on the surface of red blood cells. Blood is classified as type A if it has only antigen A, type B if it has only antigen B, type AB if it has both antigens A and B, and type O if it has neither.
The Rh blood group system, short for the Rhesus macaque blood group system, classifies human blood cells as Rh-positive if they have the same antigens as those found in Rhesus macaques, and Rh-negative if they lack these antigens. Rh blood group system is the most complicated among the red blood cell blood group systems, and so far, humans have discovered more than 40 Rh antigens. Among them, the D antigen is the most antigenic; hence the presence of the D antigen on red blood cells is called Rh-positive, while its absence is called Rh-negative.
People with different blood types have different antibodies in their serum, but none contain antibodies that react against their own red blood cell antigens. Hence, when blood containing certain antibodies is transfused into someone with corresponding antigens, an antigen-antibody reaction occurs, and the transfused red blood cells are damaged.
This is what is known as a hemolytic reaction.
This is precisely the issue that Jounouchi Hiromi's thesis aimed to solve.
As for the significance of solving this problem, one only needs to think of the news stories every year about the shortage of blood supplies due to rare blood types and the calls for blood donations to understand the immense importance of achieving cross-type transfusions.
To necromancers, blood is a significant entity. The School of Bone Studies may not need to use blood much, but they still need it to nourish bones; the School of Corpse Studies also requires blood to animate corpses—of course, to them, blood might mean more than just blood; as for the Curse School and the Mysticism School, blood has even more uses, from cursing to divination...
But those who truly utilize blood are mainly from the Blood School itself.
For a Blood School necromancer, resolving the hemolytic reaction between different blood types is not a difficult task.
The approach Jounouchi Hiromi took in her thesis was to eliminate antibodies within the blood to prevent antigen and antibody conflict. This approach is valid, the key lies in how to eliminate the antibodies in the transfused blood as well as those already present in the human body.
It's easy to deal with antibodies in the transfused blood as the volume for normal transfusions is limited and can be temporarily managed with medication. However, the key issue is that antibodies present in the human body will still react with antigens in the transfused blood, causing destruction of red blood cells.
Within the knowledge mastered by the Blood School, of course, there are methods to solve the issue, whether by using spells or concocting potions, both can effectively address the problem. The solution Jounouchi Hiromi proposed was to use a reagent that neutralizes hemolytic reactions to prevent blood from dissolving, and the principle behind this reagent was to temporarily protect the transfused blood so that the antigens on its red cells wouldn't react with the antibodies in the human blood.
If such a reagent truly exists, it certainly constitutes a solution to the problem. Although transfusion blood needs to be treated to enable cross-type transfusion, this is a significant improvement compared to lacking blood in critical moments.
What's more, Chen Yu saw that the potion formula used by Jounouchi Hiromi was quite affordable and required only small doses. It could even be made into something like those blood collecting flasks seen in video games, where just putting the blood inside would activate it.
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