Light transmission and scattering by red blood cell suspensions.

For many years, measurements of the light transmittedby thin films of nonhemolyzed whole blood have been usedfor estimating oxygen saturation. More recently, rafleetancemeasurements of thick layers of nonhemolyzed bloodhave been used for the same purpose. The lack of precisionof these empirical techniques suggested to us t'hat morebasic work was required to investigate the light scatteringand absorbing properties of nonhemolyzed blood. [...