Can diluted seawater be used instead of blood for total transfusions?

[WhyNot]

Of course not. I know that. But I’m not sure how to address this bit of nonsense:

It turns out that trials were run on stray dogs to test ocean plasma (diluted, cold-filtered ocean water) as a transfusion substitute. In one experiment, René Quinton and his medical team drained a dog of all of its blood and replaced it with isotonic (diluted) seawater. The dog should have died immediately, one would think, but the dog lived. On day two after the transfusion, 50 per cent of the blood components had reappeared. By day four, almost 100 per cent of the missing blood components were restored in what appeared to be proof of biological transmutation (a change from one element to another). Not only did the blood completely regenerate, but soon after the procedure the dog bounced around like a puppy with greater vitality than before, and it lived for many years afterwards. Just think what a safe, effective, plentiful substitute for blood transfusion would mean to the world: no side effects, no blood-type matching needed, no pathogen screening required, and it would be a true plasma with proven healing properties in itself!

http://oceanplasma.org/documents/substitute.html

I’m guessing that this is simply an overblown claim, that dilute sea water can be safely injected in small amounts, and someone has, in the last 100 years, exaggerated that to “all of its blood.”

Edit: I have absolutely no idea where to post this one. Mea culpa.

[Merneith]

I should think the only necessary answer would be to start reading that page at the beginning and work your way down. There’s so much bullshit there that the “researcher” has no credibility - and that’s even before you get into the fact that she’s an artist by education.

Presumably, Rene Quinton performed the actual experiments he said he did, but the scientific method says his results need to be reproducible. Should be easy enough to test. We don’t want to hurt any doggies, of course, so naturally the person you’re discussing this with won’t mind trying it out on herself?

[yawuntz]

Hmm, depends from which sea. Vancouver harbor? Forget it. Maybe some nice clear water from some uninhabited Mediterranean isle… or thereabouts.

[WhyNot]

@Merneith

I should think the only necessary answer would be to start reading that page at the beginning and work your way down. There’s so much bullshit there that the “researcher” has no credibility - and that’s even before you get into the fact that she’s an artist by education.

Presumably, Rene Quinton performed the actual experiments he said he did, but the scientific method says his results need to be reproducible. Should be easy enough to test. We don’t want to hurt any doggies, of course, so naturally the person you’re discussing this with won’t mind trying it out on herself?

Yeah. sigh I was hoping for a little more obvious debunking, but this is, like, 100 years old now. Apparently they’re selling diluted sea water as a supplement in Canada, based on this “research”.

[Grumman]

Partial transfusions of saline solution are real medicine - the body is capable of compensating for the blood being thinner long enough to replace the lost blood cells. But that only goes so far - if you have no blood cells, it doesn’t matter how hard your heart tries to pump them around.

If you want a rough number, apparently the use of a hyperbaric chamber can allow survival of something like a 60% loss of blood cell volume. 75% was fatal.

[Saint_Cad]

I totally believe the quote. You see, I’ve bled in the ocean so naturally ocean water “remembers” how to transport oxygen around my body and remove wastes. In fact given the astronomical dilution levels (like maybe 1 part cad blood for 10,000 parts water), seawater is of course better than my old blood.

[Kobal2]

@Saint_Cad

I totally believe the quote. You see, I’ve bled in the ocean so naturally ocean water “remembers” how to transport oxygen around my body and remove wastes. In fact given the astronomical dilution levels (like maybe 1 part cad blood for 10,000 parts water), seawater is of course better than my old blood.

Be careful though - when I was a kid I pissed in the sea. It was only a little wee 20 years ago, but obviously at these dilution levels it becomes extremely homeotoxic.

BTW, I love how the writer of the quoted text in the OP manages to sneak some actual alchemy into the works. I didn’t even know that was still around, so kudos on finding some very high grade woo, WhyNot.

[running_coach]

@Kobal2

B

BTW, I love how the writer of the quoted text in the OP manages to sneak some actual alchemy into the works.

That’s gold.

[WhyNot]

@Kobal2

Be careful though - when I was a kid I pissed in the sea. It was only a little wee 20 years ago, but obviously at these dilution levels it becomes extremely homeotoxic.

BTW, I love how the writer of the quoted text in the OP manages to sneak some actual alchemy into the works. I didn’t even know that was still around, so kudos on finding some very high grade woo, WhyNot.

Oh, heck yeah! They still have conferences and shit. (Although the last International Alchemy Conference was in 2011.)

I keep telling y’all, I run with hippies. Real ones, old and young. The woo is endless. Makes my head hurt, it does. Yet somehow, I still love these crazy people.

I’m also a little bit in love with the word “homeotoxic.” Yours?

running coach…what you did there? I see it.

[WhyNot]

@Grumman

Partial transfusions of saline solution are real medicine - the body is capable of compensating for the blood being thinner long enough to replace the lost blood cells. But that only goes so far - if you have no blood cells, it doesn’t matter how hard your heart tries to pump them around.

If you want a rough number, apparently the use of a hyperbaric chamber can allow survival of something like a 60% loss of blood cell volume. 75% was fatal.

Ah, but if only they’d used overpriced seawater instead of expensive hyperbaric chambers, perhaps they could have saved them all!

(Seriously, thanks for that. That is helpful. I keep saying, “no, really, you can’t live without at least some red blood cells,” but that’s the kind of thing that’s so obvious, it’s actually difficult to find a cite for.)

[Smeghead]

On day two after the transfusion, 50 per cent of the blood components had reappeared. By day four, almost 100 per cent of the missing blood components were restored in what appeared to be proof of biological transmutation (a change from one element to another).

IF this had actually happened, it wouldn’t be proof of “biological transmutation”. It would be proof that the bone marrow was still making new blood cells, as expected.

[KarlGrenze]

Surely there must be some wiki article debunking trasnmutation, no?

Saline (0.9% NaCL) and hypersaline solutions are used during fluid therapy/supportive treatment in various diseases/conditions, so it is not impossible for part of the blood to be substituted by non-blood components.

Also, the body has some reserve capacity (bone marrrow, spleen) of red blood cells (and other blood cells). When it loses some blood, it can make up for the loss of red blood cells by throwing into circulation those red blood cells. But nowhere near 100% turnaround in 4 days.

[KarlGrenze]

WhyNot, thanks, now my brain want to pick apart this article with what I learned from general pathology and immunology courses.

[susan]

Do I have to speak kindly to the fucking ocean now? I’m so tired of “Sorry, water, I have to drink you, but I know you have feeeelings and I hope it’s not a hassle. I promise not to eat any pictures of Hitler while you’re in there!”

[Little_Nemo]

@WhyNot

Yeah. sigh I was hoping for a little more obvious debunking, but this is, like, 100 years old now. Apparently they’re selling diluted sea water as a supplement in Canada, based on this “research”.

To debunk it further, blood has several components. The critical one here is red blood cells which transport oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body.

Sea water could replace the fluid medium of blood and keep blood vessels from collapsing. But there are no red blood cells in sea water. So if you did a complete transfusion of sea water for blood, the body’s cells would all die of oxygen deprivation in a matter of minutes.

[Kobal2]

@WhyNot

I’m also a little bit in love with the word “homeotoxic.” Yours?

Yup. But you can have it too, for the low low price of $9.99 plus half a tub of colloidal silver !

[WhyNot]

@Little_Nemo

To debunk it further, blood has several components. The critical one here is red blood cells which transport oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body.

Sea water could replace the fluid medium of blood and keep blood vessels from collapsing. But there are no red blood cells in sea water. So if you did a complete transfusion of sea water for blood, the body’s cells would all die of oxygen deprivation in a matter of minutes.

Right. But in Crazy Woo Land, there’s oxygen in the seawater, and your cells can use that.

See where I’m having trouble? It’s just so far wrong that it would take at least a semester of anatomy and physiology to begin correcting all the levels of wrong.

[KarlGrenze]

@WhyNot

Right. But in Crazy Woo Land, there’s oxygen in the seawater, and your cells can use that.

See where I’m having trouble? It’s just so far wrong that it would take at least a semester of anatomy and physiology to begin correcting all the levels of wrong.

There’s oxygen, but without red blood cells, there is no way of transporting the oxygen to the different places of the body, including the places that most need it. Could this work as an explanation? The red blood cells help make sure the oxygen is distributed correctly.

[WhyNot]

@KarlGrenze

There’s oxygen, but without red blood cells, there is no way of transporting the oxygen to the different places of the body, including the places that most need it. Could this work as an explanation? The red blood cells help make sure the oxygen is distributed correctly.

AH! Yes! And here’s where it all began (and ends)…

This came up because someone posted this:

Hemoglobin and Chlorophyll have similar structures. The main difference is that hemoglobin is built around iron (Fe), where as chlorophyll is built around magnesium, (Mg). The primary function for hemoglobin is to transport oxygen from the lungs to other parts of the body. Hemoglobin is composed of four elements- carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. All four are organized around iron. Chlorophyll is composed of the same elements, which are organized around magnesium.

In sickle cell anemia, the abnormal hemoglobin (Hemoglobin-S) sticks together when it gives up its oxygen to the tissues. These clumps cause red blood cells to become stiff and shaped like a sickle.

Chlorophyll helps do the job of hemoglobin when ingested. Promote the health of circulation, cleanse the body, increase the number of red blood cells and therefore increase oxygen throughout the body, in other words, Chlorophyll helps build hemoglobin. This is exactly what our sickle cell babies and others need, to build hemoglobin!

Hemoglobin vs Chlorophyll | Cascade, GA Patch <—there’s a graphic there, showing how hemoglobin and chlorophyll are so totally (not) the same thing.

So, see, the chlorophyll in the seawater (wait, wut?) will act like hemoglobin to distribute the oxygen in the seawater and it’s totally true because 100 years ago some French national hero dude (that no one in France has ever heard of) replaced the blood of a dog with seawater and he totes lived like a puppy.

:dubious:

I’m not sure I can fix this level of willful confusion.

[KarlGrenze]

@WhyNot

Hemoglobin vs Chlorophyll | Cascade, GA Patch <—there’s a graphic there, showing how hemoglobin and chlorophyll are so totally (not) the same thing.

So, see, the chlorophyll in the seawater (wait, wut?) will act like hemoglobin to distribute the oxygen in the seawater and it’s totally true because 100 years ago some French national hero dude (that no one in France has ever heard of) replaced the blood of a dog with seawater and he totes lived like a puppy.

:dubious:

I’m not sure I can fix this level of willful confusion.

Ah… yes…

Well, chlorophyll would be present in the photosynthetic microbes present in seawater. And it doesn’t want much to do with oxygen distribution but with energy production instead. And again you would run into the problem of how can you be sure you’d be getting the correct amount of it (compared to the large amount of hemoglobin present in the blood).

Not to mention hemoglobin not only carries oxygen, but releases it (or oxygen disassociates from it) at different rates, depending on the oxygen needs of the body. How could they trust a completely different molecule (specializing in energy production) from a different type of organism (photosynthetic vs nonphotosynthetic) would even correctly transport the oxygen (and get rid of it at the same rates as hemoglobin does)?

Perhaps this works? :smack: