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ife in Your Veins
The story back of the Blood Banks and that life-saving pint of blood you gave — or can give — to some American fighter . . . Story based on "The Human Adventure" series, originating at Station WGN, Chicago, and broadcast over the Mutual network in collaboration with the University of Chicago.
by JAMES G. HANLON
MAN normally can lose a third of his blood and live. Beyond that he dies — unless, that is, he receives new blood by means of trans' fusion.
It would seem relatively easy to replace lost blood by transfusion. Yet the first recorded attempt ended in death — the death of Pope Innocent the Eighth and the death of three young boys who acted as blood donors. That was in the year 1492.
The Pope's death cast a long shadow over the development of the transfusion principle. Men were afraid to try again. The next notable attempt did not take place until 1667 when a daring young French doctor, Jean Denys, transfused a small amount of blood from a sheep into a young man weakened by bloodletting.
Again the result was disastrous. His experiment was a dramatic success but it led to a wave of transfusions and a tide of tragic errors.
Man's early notions about blood transfer weie fantastic. For 500 years it was commonly believed that the blood transferred the donor's religion
or temperament or race. To be transfused with the blood of a Quaker, for instance, was erroneously thought to put Quaker "blood" in the veins. The blood of a Negro transferred the race and the color of a Negro. A sheep's blood would cause one to bleat like a sheep.
The loss of life brought about through the practice of transfusion, following Denys' successful experiment, was so great that France finally banned the practice altogether. But although scientists did not let the matter rest at that point, it wasn't until 1869 that the next imporant step was taken.
Creite, in that year, discovere.d the mystery of agglutination and was able to announce that animal blood clots man's blood. We must use the blood of the same species, he advised. Dog's blood for dogs, man's blood for man.
Landois substantiated Creite's theory a few years later and was able to add the knowledge that, in some instances, the blood of one species dissolves the blood of another species. This he called hemolysis.