As is true in all serious endeavors, methodological trends are established and later surpassed by newer ones in medicine. The long post-operative hospital stays of years past have given way to outpatient surgical centers, use of alpha vasopressors has yielded to frequent use of dopaminergic pressors, and use of whole blood, widely practiced in the past when transfusions were required, has given way to the almost exclusive use of erythrocytes. This latter trend should be reviewed and reversed in appropriate situations. In the past, blood transfusions in general, and whole-blood transfusions in particular, were overused. Better medical education and monitoring of both blood banks and transfusions helped to reduce this problem. The simultaneous development of multiple components that could be obtained from each unit of donor blood led to reliance on erythrocytes for oxygen-carrying capacity and volume replacement. As blood is basically a nonreplaceable, valuable resource, it is admirable and quite understandable, in the name of thrift and conservation, to rely primarily on erythrocytes for transfusions. However, has the pendulum swung too far in one direction? Presently, of the 57 American Red Cross blood banking centers in the United States, most have whole blood available only on special (and prior) request. This situation is prevalent even though most ardent advocates of erythrocyte use always point out that the rapidly exsanguinating patient is the one instance where erythrocytes may be inadequate.’ In 1982, the last year for which figures are available, only 8.7% of all blood products produced by American Red Cross blood banks were in the form of whole blood, a decrease from 10.6% in 1981.’ Among the several cogent reasons for whole blood utilization in trauma resuscitation, the first, and most