EFFECT OF ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT ON THE BLOOD OF NEW-BORN INFANTS

Abstract

With the increasing use of the ultraviolet light as an important therapeutic measure in the treatment of children, it is obviously necessary to ascertain the effect that this procedure has on the blood of the young organism. For this reason the following studies were made, of which this is the preliminary report. MATERIAL This study is based on a series of fifty new-born infants. These infants were all of normal delivery, and the mothers had not been subjected to any anesthetic that would interfere with the bleeding time and the coagulation time,¹ which, with the blood platelet count, were taken immediately after birth, and at intervals of twenty-four hours thereafter. At the end of the fourth day, the ultraviolet treatments were begun on alternate infants; thus there were twenty-five normal new-born infants for a control and twenty-five who had received irradiations. These treatments were not given until the fourth