TRANSFUSION

The injection of blood from one living animal into another. It was at one time supposed that this operation might be resorted to, to sustain life in cases of great lo of blood from accidental haemorrhages and other causes; and that in certain cases of mental and bodily disease a cure might be effected by abstracting a large quantity of blood, and supplying its place by transfusion from another animal, such as a calf 12,50 TRANSIT INSTRUMENT. or sheep. Some of these experiments appeared at first to be emended with succe , but bad consequences followed; and in two or three cases in which it was tried upon the human subject it proved fatal. ^ TRANSIT (Lat. transit us, pa ase), in Astronomy, is the culmination or pa age of a celestial object acro the meridian of any place. The determination of the exact times of such transits is one of the most important operations of practical astronomy, as it is by this means that the differences of right ascensions, and consequently the relative situations of the fixed stars, and the motions of the planets and comets in respect of the celestial meridians, become known; and it is most easily and accurately effected by the aid of the transit instrument, the nature and method of using which will be explained under that term. Transit is also used to signify the pa age of an inferior planet acro the sun's disk. See Mercury and Venus. [s. 1263]