-
300
500 B.C.E
Alcmaeon of Croton discovers the difference between arteries and veins. He finds out that the arteries are dissimilar to the veins. -
400
450-400 B.C.E
Greek philosopher, Empedocles, believes that the heart is the organ of sense. He also theorizes that all matter is composed of the four elements, water, fire, earth, and air. -
500
400 B.C.E
Hippocrates a preeminent physician of antiquity states that the body is also, like all matter, composed of four humors blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. If these four humors are out of balance then it can cause a disease. -
Apr 1, 600
400 B.C.E
Hippocrates and his followers set tenents that form much of the Western medicines. Of these tenents diseases can come natural rather than magical causes, patients would be observed and symptoms of diseases should be noted, and lastly physicians would use a strict ethical code of conduct. -
May 1, 700
350 B.C.E
Greek philosopher, Aristotle, states that the heart is the central or master organ of the body or "The Seat of the Soul." After dissecting animals he states that even in humans the heart is divided into three chambers. -
Jul 1, 1000
Mid - 1200s
Eminent Cairo a physician and author Ibn al-Nafis discovered pulmonary circulation, the flow of blood to and from the lungs. -
Aug 1, 1553
1553
Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician and theologian, states that blood flows from one side of the heart to the other and the lungs instead of through the wall between the ventricles. He was later burned at the stake for denying the Trinity. -
1628
William Harvey, a British physician, published his book "EXERCITATIO ANATOMICA DE MOTU CORDIS ET SANGUINIS IN ANIMALIBUS (ANATOMICAL TREATISE ON THE MOVEMENT OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALS)." In this book he explains that blood circulates within the body and is pumped by the heart. -
1665
Richard Lower performed the first recorded blood transfusion in animals. He connects the jugular vein of a dog he's bled to the neck artery of second dog, resuscitating the former. -
1667
Jean-Baptiste Denis, a French physician, transfused a teenage boy suffering from a persistent fever with nine ounces of lamb's blood. There were no negative consequences, until the death of Antoine Mauroy, where Denis transfused twice with calf's blood. -
1677
Drs. Richard Lower and Edmund King gave Arthur Coga an indigent former cleric, a transfusion of several ounces of sheep's blood. The patient recovers nicely. -
1771
William Hewson, an anatomist and a British author of " EXPERIMENTAL ENQUIRY INTO THE PROPERTIES OF THE BLOOD" detailed his research on blood coagulation, it included his success at arresting clotting and isolating a substance from plasma he dubs "coagulable lymph." Known as fibrogen. -
1818
James Blundell performed the first recorded human to human blood transfusion. He injected a patient that was suffering from internal bleeding with 12 to 14 ounces of blood from several it worked, but the patient dies after showing improvment. -
1901
Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian physician, published a paper that detailed his discovery of the three main types of human blood- A, B, and C (he later changed it to O). Red cells agglutinate when serum from one group, he calls "A," is mixed with the red cells of a second group, "B." Similarly, group "B" serum causes the red cells of group "A" to agglutinate, but the red cells of a third group, "C," never clump when mixed with the serum of group "A" or "B." -
1907
Dr. Ludvig Hektoen recommended checking the blood of donors and recipients for signs of incompatibility prior to transfusion. Dr. Reuben Ottenberg later performed the first transfusion using cross matching, and over the next several years successfully uses the procedure in 128 cases, virtually eliminating transfusion reactions. -
1915
Dr. Richard Lewisohn formulated the optimum concentration of sodium citrate that can be mixed with donor blood to prevent a negative result, but pose no danger to the recipient, .2 percent. -
1916
Francis Peyton Rous and J.R. Turner developed a citrate-glucose solution that allows blood to be stored for a few weeks after collection and still remain useful. -
1917
Dr. Oswald Robertson collected and stored type O blood, with citrate-glucose solution. He established the first blood depot. -
1922
Percy Lane Oliver began operating a blood donor service out of his home in London. -
1930
Dr. Serge Yudin is the first to test the value of transfusing humans with cadaver blood. He successfully rhelps a young man who's slashed both his wrists attempting suicide by injecting him with 420 cc of blood from a cadaver of a 60-year-old man, who has died after being hit by an omnibus. -
1936
Federico Duran-Jorda establishes the Barcelona Blood-Transfusion Service. Canadian surgeon Dr. Norman Bethune, organizes a similar mobile blood service in Madrid. The Spanish-Canadian Blood Transfusion Institute. -
1939
Drs. Philip Levine and R.E. Stetson uncover an antibody in the blood of a woman who's given birth to a stillborn, and postulate that a factor in the blood of the fetus, inherited from the father, triggers the antibody production in the mother. -
1940
Drs. Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener discovered the Rh blood group and identify the antibody found by Levine and Steston to be anti-Rh. -
1940
A plasma shortage in Britain during World War II makes the U.S. to organize the Plasma of Britain campaign, run by Dr. Charles Drew from a central laboratory at Presbyterian Hospital in New York. -
1940
Edwin Cohn invented a method to separate out its different proteins. With slight variations in temperature and chemical conditions, plasma is mixed with the solvent ethyl alcohol and centrifuged.Through this process dubbed fractionation, Cohn and his team are able to isolate the plasma components fibrinogen, gamma globulin, and albumin. Each of these fractions are thought to contain different therapeutic properties with albumin. -
1959
Dr. Max Perutz was able to unravel the structure of hemoglobin, the protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen. -
1965
Dr. Judith Pool discoverd that slowly thawed frozen plasma yields deposits high in Factor VIII. It prevents the need for hemophiliacs to travel to the hospital to be treated, after being thawed, by a physician. -
Late 1960s
Drs. Kenneth M. Brinkhous and Edward Shanbrom produced a highly concentrated form of Factor VIII. The result of powder's clotting power is 100 times stronger than raw plasma. -
1971
The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Elliot Richardson transfered the responsibility of regulating the blood banking industry from the Division of Biologics Standards to the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Baruch Blumberg identified a substance on the surface of the hepatitis B virus that makes the production of antibodies. -
1984
Dr. Robert Gallo identified the virus that causes AIDS, HTLV III (human T-cell lymphotropic virus). -
1985
Many Americans were infected with AIDS from blood transfusions, the first blood-screening test to find the presence or absence of HIV antibodies,the ELISA test, is licensed by the U.S. government. -
1987
A legal battle occurs over who deserves credit for the discovery of the AIDS virus, which finally ends in 1987 when the U.S. and French governments agree to share credit. -
1987-2002
Many of more tests are developed to screen donated blood for infectious diseases. Two tests that screen for indirect evidence of hepatitis, the Human T-Lymphotropic-Virus-I-antibody test, the hepatitis C test, the HIV-1 and HIV-2 antibodies test, the HIV p24 antigen test, and Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing that directly detects the genetic material of viruses like HCV and HIV. -
300 B.C.E
One of the first Greek anatomists, Herophilus of Chalcedon, dissected human cadavers publicly, He confirmed that arteries were much thicker than veins and carry blood. -
130 C.E - 200 C.E
Claudius Galenus became one of the most important physicians in history. He proved that arteries contain blood, he also suggested that the system of arteries and veins are completely different, also that blood forms in the liver and travels through the veins to all parts of the body and passes between the ventricles through pores in the septum.