NATIONAL BLOOD PROGRAM The joint effort of the Red Cross and the Department of Defense did not alter in any way the basic responsibility of the National Blood Program to provide blood to civilian hospitals served by its regional centers. On July 20, 1950, the Defense Department requested the Red Cross to accept the responsibility for procurement of blood for military use. In August of the same year, at the request of the National Resources Board, the Red Cross also assumed the added assignment of supplying blood and blood de¬rivatives for civil defense and of coordinating the efforts of all agencies cooperating in this task. In spite of these added responsibilities, civilian ANSWER THEIR CALL In Korea only the thin red stream of blood flowing into his veins from a transfusion bottle keeps death from a wounded soldier. On a thousand Main Streets across the nation, life- giving blood stands between death and the victims of accident or illness. Blood means life to hundreds of men and women and children each day. Through your help— the Red Cross can answer their call. hospitals continued to be served according to their local community needs. The National Blood Program has collected and distributed to hospitals and physicians for treatment of civilian patients approximately 2,000,000 pints of whole blood. Between 1944, 10 NATIONAL BLOOD PROGRAM when distribution of blood derivatives began, and October 1, 1951, the program has supplied 3,032,5 50 units of immune serum globulin for treatment of measles and approximately 152,600 units of 100 cc. vials of serum albumin. On October 1, 1951, regional and defense centers and cooperating blood banks were collecting blood at the accelerated rate of 195,000 pints a month. DISASTER SERVICES LAST JULY the nation's most devastating flood since 1937 smashed through Kansas and Mis¬souri and overflowed into Oklahoma and Illinois. Estimated property damage in Kansas and Mis¬souri alone was more than one billion dollars. Twenty persons died and hundreds of thousands suffered one kind of economic loss or another. Tens of thousands were made homeless. The floods struck fast, but the military, govern- 11