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Blood History

  • Feb 19, 1200

    Pulmonary Circulation

    Pulmonary Circulation
    Ibn al-Nafis (philosopher) had discovered the flow of blood to and from the lungs.
  • Blood Circulation in Heart

    Blood Circulation in Heart
    William Harvey had published a book in which depicts blood being circulated throughout the body and is pumped through the heart.
  • First interaction with Blood Cells

    First interaction with Blood Cells
    Jan Swammerdam is considered to be the first person to have observed and describe red blood cells.
  • Capillary System

    Capillary System
    Marcello Malpighi observes the capillary system through a rudimentary microscope.
  • First Blood Diffusion

    Richard Lower performed the first recorded blood transfusion in animals. With a syringe he connected the vein of a dog he's bled to the neck artery of second dog, "resuscitating" the one that had died.
  • Lamb's Blood Transfussion

    In June, French physician Jean-Baptiste Denis transfuses patients with lambs blood until Antoine Mauroy's death because of it and had stopped for a while.
  • Successful Sheeps Blood Tranfusion

    Drs. Richard Lower performed the tranfussion successfully to one of his patients after of the course, the incident of the last tranfussion done by Jean-Baptiste Denis.
  • Leeuwenhoeks Precise Detail

    Leeuwenhoek, while unaware of other's discoveries, has managed to provide a more precise description of red blood cells claiming that they are "25,000 times smaller than a fine grain of sand".
  • William Henson's Clotting Discovery

    In his book, he establishes idea of blood coagulation. The substance called a "coagulable lymph" which is now known as fibrogen, a key protein in the clotting process.
  • James Blundell 1st Human-Human Transfussion

    James Blundell performed the first recorded human-to-human blood transfusion injecting a patient suffering from internal bleeding, then the patient dies after showing improvement.
  • Human Blood Groups Exposed

    Karl Landsteiner had published a paper of his discovery of three main blood groups being A, B, and C. Then a year later, Dr. Landsteiner's colleagues Alfred von Decastello and Adriano Sturli identify a fourth blood group--AB.
  • Cross Matching Tranfussion

    Dr. Reuben Ottenberg performs the first transfusion using cross matching, and over the next several years successfully eliminates transfusion reactions.
  • Refrigerated Blood

    Dr. Richard Weil determines that citrated blood can be refrigerated and stored for a few days and then successfully transfused. So he had established the idea of ever refigerating blood, which is still in tact today.
  • First Blood Depot

    Dr. Oswald Robertson had collected/stored type O blood before the arrival of casualties during the Battle of Cambrai in World War I. So he had stablished the first blood depot.
  • Soviets Establish Blood Transfussion in Hospitals

    Dr. Serge Yudin is the first to test the efficacy of transfusing humans with cadaver blood and resuscitates a young man attempting suicide by injecting him with blood from a cadaver of a 60-year-old man who had died beforehand.
  • "Blood Bank" comes into play

    Dr. Bernard Fantus uses the term "blood bank" to describe the blood donation, collection, and its preservation.
  • 5th Blood Group Discovery

    Drs. Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener had discovered the Rh blood group while experimentating on the red blood cells of Rhesus monkeys.
  • Pearl Harbor Blood Treatments

    In NY, the Red Cross collects over 13 million units of blood over the course of the war. Later, Isidor Ravdin successfully treats victims of the Pearl Harbor attack with "albumin" to increase blood volume.
  • Establishment of Associated Blood Banks

    As an alternative to the Red Cross blood centers being set up across the country in the postwar period, directors of independent, community blood banks join together to form a national network of blood banks called the American Association of Blood Banks.
  • Blood Storage Increased Due to..

    Dr. Carl W. Walter, developed a plastic bag for the collection of blood. Before, glass bottles are used to store blood, but their fragility makes him create a container made of plastic, which revolutionized blood collection.
  • Hemoglobin Protein Discovered

    Dr. Max Perutz working at Cambridge University, England, is able to unravel the structure of hemoglobin, the protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen.
  • Identification of Infection

    Dr. Baruch Blumberg of the NIH identifies a substance during his work leads to the development of a test to detect the presence of hepatitis B antibodies, doing so dentified the infected donors.
  • GRID Syndrome

    The first cases of a syndrome initially called GRID (Gay-related Immunodeficiency Disease), due to its prevalence among gay males and later renamed AIDS.
  • Virus Causing AIDS Discovered

    Researchers at Dr. Luc Montagnier's lab, isolate the virus that causes AIDS. They locate it in the swollen node in the neck of a Parisian AIDS patient and call it LAV.
  • AIDS Virus

    Dr. Robert Gallo of the NIH announces that he's identified the virus that causes AIDS called HTLV III.