Q about transplants/organ donation

[Parker Gabriel]

Thankyou very much
Does anyone actually know what Scarlet's blood type is?

Double O.

HUH?

WADR(With all due respect), would the Colonel mind running that by us again?

Or should that be read as "type O, Rh-negative" on the Landsteiner tables?

[Marion]

IKeepFishInMyEpaulettes wrote:
Thankyou very much
Does anyone actually know what Scarlet's blood type is?

chrisbishop wrote:
Double O.


HUH?

WADR(With all due respect), would the Colonel mind running that by us again?

Or should that be read as "type O, Rh-negative" on the Landsteiner tables?

Oh, for crying out loud - can't anyone see the joke?

Double-O .... two big round circles - probably GREEN...

Nice one, Colonel...

[Parker Gabriel]

The Landsteiner tables were those that Dr. Karl Landsteiner worked out for the purpose of typing and cross-matching blood for transfusions. They'e based on whether a certain protein is present in the bloodstream with the effect of agglutinogenesis, the causation of dangerous cell clumping, of transfused blood.

Type AB, the rarest blood group, includes both the agglutinogenic proteins, which I'll call antigens from here, A and B in the blood cells and lacks the antibodies anti-A and anti-B in the serum. It is the "universal recipient" type.
Type O, the commonest blood group, lacks the antigens A and B in the cells and includes both the antibodies anti-A and anti-B in the serum. It is the "universal donor" type, and I personally belong to that group.
Type A has antigen A and antibody anti-B.
Type B has antihen B and antibody anti-A.
The Rh factor, one of five antigens which Dr. Landsteiner found in the blood of and named for the rhesus monkey, is the most important of these five. It is present in Rh-positive blood, which I myself have, and absent from Rh-negative.

I'm no doctor, but that should explain some details. Captain Scarlet's immunology is dependent in large part on how active these are.

[Parker Gabriel]

I get the point. <I'm tearing my hair in exasperation at not having seen it before.>

Sor-REE!

[Intensity Angel]

Cheer up, you've just made more sense than my old biology teacher. But there many interesting points. Could it be that Scarlet's blood would become irus like and actually cause a normal person to die, because the body systems can't keep up with the bloodstream?

[IKeepFishInMyEpaulettes]

Sorry about the language
*joke flies straight over her head*
Does he have a blood type then?
KeepingFish

[Marion]

Oh, I expect so, but it isn't something we're told.
Even using the additional information from the published annuals, comics and novels, we're actually given very little personal information about any of the characters - and what we do know is often contradictory - or at the least - highly implausible.


OO Illustration of the 'Double O' blood type...

[IKeepFishInMyEpaulettes]

OO Illustration of the 'Double O' blood type...

Muchos amusement

KeepingFish
[/quote]

[Intensity Angel]

Nice one Marion!!

I was thinking. What would Mysteron blood be like?

Anyway off task.

What if Scarlet suffered a major problem and required a blood transfusion himself/ What would happen there, if we are saying that retrometabolism can be passed through blood, then would Scarlet become more normal if he had a blood tranfusion off a normal person, and why don't we just give the senior officers blood group fo the sake of further agrument and fan fiction?

[chrisbishop]

I am just wondering why he would need blood transfusion to begin with, other than the fact that his retrometabolism might fail him. Because his body recreates itself when he's wounded - flesh, bones, muscles and yes, that does include blood cells. So, unless somehow his powers are not working - for whatever reason, he wouldn't need transfusion. This is my humble opinion, but I do believe it is based on whatever we know is canon.

Regarding blood type - do WE really need to do that? It seems like such an uneeded detail, generally speaking, but I can understand it might be important for one story, and for one given case. So the author, in that case, can do whatever he/she wants for the sake of the story in question, and for the character(s) she needs. I wouldn't give ALL of them any blood type if it isn't relevant to the story. Just the needed details.

[Intensity Angel]

Alright, now I feel done fore, i should've been more exact with mywords, yes I did mean if his retrometabolism had failed for whatever reason.

I was thinking (again!), if someone removed nearly all of Scarlet's blood, how long would it take for him to recover?

[Marion]

It apparently only took a matter of hours for him to recover from dying when he fell off the Car-Vu.... I think that's right, anyway.
A sort of fanon guideline has developed that recovery times might well depend on how messy a death it was - but more often than that the deciding factor is one of plotline. If you need him back at work - he gets well soon, if the plot demands he isn't available, it takes a long time (and people worry).
There are no exact timings and it would only matter if he had been drained of blood in the perameters of a story.
Not everyone agrees his retrometabolism is in any way connected to his blood anyway, but I suspect that even if he was given a full transfusion, his retrometabolism would quickly 'correct' any fault it found with the new blood.
Scarlet is indestructible: he gets better, sooner or later, whatever happens to him.

[Intensity Angel]

Except when high voltage electricty is concerned. Now that's just brought yet another questsion to my head.

Divers wear shark pods to protect themselves, or whatever they are called now. These produce an electrical field that surrounds the diver. The electrical field repells sharks, even the Great White. Wouldn't that give Scarlet a bit of bother is he had to use one?

Would it be safe to say that Scarlet more red blood cells than an average person? Would he have a higher amount, like those people living in high altitudes.

[Marion]

Would it be safe to say that Scarlet more red blood cells than an average person? Would he have a higher amount, like those people living in high altitudes

You can say that if you want to - no one could prove you wrong.
The problem of Scarlet and electricity has probably been discussed elsewhere already - but there is (as usual with Andershows) no proof that Scarlet would be vulnerable to permanent death by electrocution. There are comic stories (and 'Noose of Ice' and 'Operation Time' on the TV) where he encounters 'dangerously high' electrical charges and survives.
We are shown Mysteron agents being killed by electricity - hence the development of the Mysteron (or Electron) Gun - and we know Mysteron control over a machine is disrupted (Flight 104) by proximity to generating station, which suggests there is a definite antipathy between Mysteronised subjects and an electrical field. However, Scarlet (although he has been Mysteronised) is no longer under their direct control, so there is nothing but circumstantial evidence to suggest he would be killed outright as well.
For obvious reasons though, it isn't something Spectrum has ever put to the test - at least not AFTER they made the connection between Mysteronised agents and fatal encounters with electricity!

[Skybase Girl]

I'm finding this thread fascinating - not sure how I missed it, considering it's been going on a long time !

The knowledge of the biologists among us is impressive and useful ( at least as far as fanfic is concerned !)

To add to Marion's last point, it does seem as if Scarlet's recovery time depends on the demands of the script. I was also interested in the point someone made about whether he could regenerate an entire organ or a limb. I know this has been covered in a very interesting fan fic, "Heartless", by our very own Colonel-in-Chief !

There does seem to be a hint in the NCS episode "Shapeshifter", that if Scarlet's hand had been chopped off ( because the guy wanted his watch), it could have been disastrous and that's why it was fortunate that Scarlet regained consciousness - or came back to life, depending on how dead you think he was - when he did.

Maybe it would depend on how much damage was done. Incidently, and I'm probably mixing threads here, not all Mysterons seem to possess retrometabolism, like Scarlet & Black do. I'm thinking of Astrid Winters in "Achilles Messenger." Maybe that's because they don't need bodies except to carry out a specific task and then the body is dispensed with. You can understand why the Mysterons would want to keep Black going, but it doesn't explain Scarlet. Sorry, I'll shut up now, or post this elsewhere !