Blood

Bad enough it was, thought Mrs. Irene Smith, Livingston, N. J., mother of seven, to be divorced for adultery. But when her onetime husband, a Milburn, N. J., policeman, refused to support her youngest child because he believed the divorce corespondent, one August Schildknecht, was its father, Mrs. Smith protested.

She had heard that there were blood tests to decide putative paternality. Her information was imperfect. There are four kinds of human blood, called in medicine Groups I, II, III, IV. Only if a child's blood differs from that of both its parents', is it probable that the man is not the father, and possible that the woman is not the mother. Resemblances cannot be conclusive.

Nonetheless Mrs. Smith last week cried to court for blood tests. They were permitted, and the two men, the mother and the child each gave up a few drops of their blood. It was with quite different emotions that the adults learned that all four individuals had exactly the same type, that the point at issue could have no medical proof.

That there are four different types of human blood has another, and far greater significance in medicine. For blood transfusions bloods must not be antagonistic. Blood group IV in emergency may be used for any transfusion. It has general characteristics. People of the other three groups can furnish their blood only to patients of their own type.

Technique of blood transfusion has enabled many an individual to help a sick or injured friend. It has also created a traffic in blood. Blood brokers organize professional donors and supply them to hospitals. The friendless patient pays $50 a pint for blood. Brokers exact 20% of that as commission. Manhattan has about 2,000 donors, half of them professionals, half occasionals (impoverished people, thrill seekers). One Thomas Kane, deckhand, after giving blood 100 times in 15 years, ''retired'' last week. He boasts himself the record holder and now considers selling patches of his skin for grafting.

Another donor, Robert Francis Gardiner, has sold his blood 73 times in nine years. Shrewd, he has assembled a gang of 300 robust Bowery down-&-outs, dock-wallopers, truck drivers and chauffeurs whose blood he sells to New York hospitals. Outdoor workers serve best.

Such commercial traffic has dangers. It cannot be closely supervised. Many a blood seller is diseased, many a one sells too often. It takes four to five weeks for such to replace their lost blood properly to provide for another transfusion. A doctor sometimes needs a donor in a hurry and has no time to make thorough blood tests and counts. He must rely on a seller's word, and many a man who will sell blood for a living will tell lies.

In an attempt to put the commercial blood brokers out of business, the New York Academy of Medicine, County Medical Society and Health Department recently gave their joint blessing to an Association for the Transfusion of Blood in Aid of Suffering. This organization is semi-commercial, quasi eleemosynary. It charges the standard $50 a pint for blood, gives its selected sellers $45, keeps $5 for commission. It is under reliable medical control.