Date of Award

Spring 1957

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Nursing

First Advisor

Brown, Kenneth D.

Second Advisor

Quick

Third Advisor

Koch, John R.

Abstract

Since the days of Howell, heparin has been used clinically as a means of rendering the blood incoagulable. More recently a second clinical application of this sulfated polysaccharide material has become quite wide spread, its use in the treatment of atherosclerosis. Because of this wide spread clinical use many attempts have been made to prove that this substance is a normal constituent of blood. Also, many methods have been proposed for the assay of heparin in the circulation. Attempts to isolate heparin from normal blood have failed to produce unequivocal evidence that this substance is a component of the normal circulation. The assay of heparin in the blood has been approached from many different fronts. In general, all methods (some twenty or so) are based upon the ability of heparin to inhibit one or more of the coagulation factors and/or to combine metachromatically with one of the basic dyes such as toluidine blue or azure A. Using such methods values ranging from zero to 10 mg per cent have been reported for the heparin concentration of blood. Furthermore, the same methods in the hands of different investigators produce different results. The net result is that, at present, there is no adequate method for the assay of total heparin in the blood which is capable of producing reliable results. An attempt to resolve this situation was begun about a year ago. Methods for the isolation of heparin from blood were surveyed and methods for the quantitative analysis of the isolated material were tested. The results of these investigations are reported in this thesis.

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