History of Blood

  • 2500 BCE: Egyptian Bleeding

    Egyptians used blood letting to try and cure people of illnesses. It was thought that by relesing blood or "humors", they body's balance or health would be restored. This was shown to be practiced by an illistraion in a tomb of bleeding from the foot and neck as a medical procedure.
  • 500 BCE: arteries and veins

    Alcmaeon of croton is seen as the first person to preform dissections in animals. He was the first to determine that there was a difference between veins and arteries. The greek thinker influenced what we know about circulation throughout history and today.
  • 450-400 BCE:Empedocles

    A Sicilian philosopher states that the heart is what we sense and feel with as humans, which is not believed to be factual today, but the heart is still used to describe love and passion. Empedocles also said that metter in general was composed of water,earth,fire, and air (the 4 "roots" or elements).
  • 400BCE:Hippocrates

    Hippocrates said there was blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile in the Human Body. He was influenced by empedocles' theory that there were 4 "roots" in the world. He aslo said that illness was natural and not magical which has become the belief of western medicine.
  • 350 BCE: Aristotle

    Aristotle doe many dissections on animals and looks particularly at their hearts. he concludes that the heart is the center of the body (the seat of the soul) and has 3 chamber.
  • 130-200CE : Galen

    Galen suggests arteries contain blood but are differnet than veins. He said that blood starts in the liver and then flows to the rest of the body.
  • mid-1200s: pulmonary circulation

    The flow of blood through the lungs was descibed by Eminent Cairo, the physican, and Ibn al-Nafis, the author.
  • 1555:Vesalius

    Galen's work was critisized by Andreas Vesalius in DE FABRICA.
  • 1603:Fabricius

    ON THE VALVES IN VEINS was published by Fabricius ffom padua. It featured the first drawings of veins.
  • 1628: William Harvey

    Harvey writes EXERCITATIO ANATOMICA DE MOTU CORDIS ET SANGUINIS IN ANIMALIBUS (ANATOMICAL TREATISE ON THE MOVEMENT OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALS which explain that blood is circulated throughout the body by the heart. The highly critsized:DE MOTU CORDIS shows all his experiments on animals.
  • 1658: Red blood cells

    A dutch microscopist described red blood cells for the first time. Jan Swammerdam was 21 years old when he observedthe cells.
  • 1667:blood transfusion

    the first blood tranfusion was preformed by Jean-Baptiste Denis. he gave a teenage boy lamb's blood successful and does more transfers until a patient named Antoine Mauroy dies.
  • 1874:Platelets

    Platelets are discovered by Sir William Osler. He found the little peices from bone marrow that make up clots.
  • 1901: Blood Typing

    Karl Landsteiner describes 3 differnt types of blood as A, B, and C.Later he changes C for O. Landsteiner then writes a paper on the blood types.
  • 1902: new blood type

    Alfred von Decastello and Adriano Sturli, Landsteiner's colleagues, discover a fouth blood type and call it B.
  • 1916: blood storage

    Blood can now be stored thanks to a citrate-glucose solution that allows doctors keep blood good for weeks.
  • 1922: donating blood

    Percy Lane Oliver starts a blood donor service with voluteers on call 24/7 to give blood to hospitals.
  • 1930: cadaver blood transfusions

    The 1st blood transfusions with cadaver blood are performed by Dr. Serge Yudin. He saves a man with another dead man's blood.
  • " Blood Bank"

    the term " blood bank" is derived from Dr. Bernard Fantus' blood donation, collection and preservation facility.
  • 1940: plasma campaign

    U.S. makes the Plasma of Britain campaign after britain has a shortage in WWI. Charles Drewruns it with old and new tachniques.
  • 1948: blood storage

    Harold W. Walter uses plastic bags rather than glass to store blood. This was much more sanitary.
  • 1954: Hemophilia

    Cryoprecipitate, a blood product, is developed to treat bleeds in people with hemophilia.
  • 1955: Butterfly needle

    IV access is made easier and safer through the use of the “butterfly” needle and intercath.
  • late-1960s: Factor VIII

    A highly concentrated form of Factor VIII was made by putting plasma that produces cyro, and then redissolving them, treating them, filtering them and centerfuging them.
  • 1971: blood banking turned over to FDA

    The regulation of the blood banking industry was transfered to the FDA by the secretary of health. Because of this many tests were mandated by the FDA.
  • 1959: Hemoglobin structure

    Hemogoblin structure was discovered by Dr. Max Perutz as a protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen.
  • 1965: Plasma info

    Slowly thawed frozen plasma was studied by Dr. Judith Pool who observed some interesting properties. She found that the plasma had greater clotting power than normal plasma.
  • 1971: Hepatitis B virus

    Dr. Baruch Blumberg identifies a substance on the surface of the hepatitis B virus. The substance triggered the production of antibodies, which leads on to identifying infected donors.
  • 1981: AIDS

    The first accounts of the sydrome AIDs were found. Later, this disease came to be one of the deadliest in mankind.
  • 1982 : GRID

    After discovering that even hemophiliacs were acquiring GRID (gay- related immunodeficiency disease), Dr. Bruce Evatt then thought tthe sydnrome may be blood borne.
  • 1983: virus that causes AIDS

    The AIDS causing virus was found by researchers at a lab in France, in the swollen lymph node of an AIDS victim.
  • 1984: AIDS virus identified

    The virus that caused AIDS was named HTLV III (human T-cell lymphotrophic virus) by Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Institute of Health.
  • 1985: ELISA test

    The first blood screening test is performed due to the spread of AIDS due to blood transfusions. The test is adopted world-wide in order to control the spread of AIDS.
  • 1987-2002:More tests

    A series of more sensitive tests are developed and implemented to screen donated blood for infectious diseases.