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Ibn al-Nafis discovers the blood flow that goes to and from the lungs.
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Michael Servetus suggests that blood flows from one side of the heart to the other via the lungs contrary to Galens theory of it going through the wall between the ventricles. He gets burned at the stake as a heretic for denying the Trinity.
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The Italian Andreas Vesalius publishes his seventh volume work detailing human anatomy, DE FABRICA.
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Fabricius, the anatomist from Padua, publishes his work ON THE VALVES IN VEINS, featuring the first drawings of vein valves
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William Harvey publishes EXERCITATIO ANATOMICA DE MOTU CORDIS ET SANGUINIS IN ANIMALIBUS in which he explains that blood circulates within the body and is pumped by the heart.
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Jan Swammerdam, a 21-year-old Dutch microscopist, is the first person to observe and describe red blood cells
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Italian anatomist Marcello Malpighi observes the capillary system, the network of fine vessels that connect the arteries and the veins.
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In England, Richard Lower connects the jugular vein of a dog he's bled to the neck artery of second dog, resuscitating the former.
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French physician Jean-Baptiste Denis attaches the lamb's carotid artery to a vein in the boy's forearm, without the patient suffering any negative consequences. He then starts to use the same procedure on other patients.
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Drs. Richard Lower and Edmund King give Arthur Coga a transfusion of several ounces of sheep's blood for a fee of 20 shillings
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Dr Denis sues Antoine Mauroy's widow for slandering his reputation. The case precipitates the French Parliament's ban on all transfusions involving humans.
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Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch linen draper turned microscopist, provides a more precise description of red blood cells, even approximating their size, "25,000 times smaller than a fine grain of sand."
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British anatomist William Hewson details his research on blood coagulation, including his success at arresting clotting and isolating a substance from plasma he dubs "coagulable lymph."
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Philadelphia physician Philip Syng Physick performs the first human-to-human blood transfusion
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British obstetrician and physiologist James Blundell uses a syringe to inject a patient suffering from internal bleeding with 12 to 14 ounces of blood from several donors.
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Sir William Osler observes that small cell fragments from the bone marrow make up the bulk of clots formed in blood vessels. They are later named platelets.
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Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner publishes a paper detailing his discovery of the three main human blood groups -- A, B, and C, which he later changes to O.
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Dr. Landsteiner's colleagues Alfred von Decastello and Adriano Sturli identify a fourth blood group AB
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Dr. Reuben Ottenberg performs the first transfusion using cross matching, and over the next several years successfully uses the procedure in 128 cases
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Albert Hustin of Brussels and Luis Agote of Buenos Aires discover that adding sodium citrate to blood will prevent it from clotting
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Dr. Richard Lewisohn formulates the optimum concentration of sodium citrate that can be mixed with donor blood to prevent coagulation, but pose no danger to the recipient
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Dr. Richard Weil determines that citrated blood can be refrigerated and stored for a few days and then successfully transfused.
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Francis Peyton Rous and J.R. Turner develop a citrate-glucose solution that allows blood to be stored for a few weeks after collection and still remain viable for transfusion.
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Dr. Oswald Robertson collects and stores type O blood, with citrate-glucose solution, in advance of the arrival of casualties during the Battle of Cambrai in World War I. Thereby, he establishes the first blood depot.
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Percy Lane Oliver begins operating a blood donor service. He recruits volunteers who agree to be on 24-hour call and to travel to local hospitals to give blood as the need arises.
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Dr. Serge Yudin is the first to test the efficacy of transfusing humans with cadaver blood. He successfully resuscitates 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.
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Canadian surgeon Dr. Norman Bethune, a volunteer with the leftist forces in the Spanish Civil War, organizes The Spanish-Canadian Blood Transfusion Institute.
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Federico Duran-Jorda establishes the Barcelona Blood-Transfusion Service. The service collects blood, tests it, pools it by blood group, preserves and stores it in bottles under refrigeration, and by way of vehicles fitted with refrigerators, transports it to front line hospitals during the Spanish Civil War.
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Dr. Bernard Fantus coins the term "blood bank" to describe the blood donation, collection, and preservation facility
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Drs. Philip Levine and R.E. Stetson uncover an unknown 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.
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Drs. Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener discover the Rh blood group, through experiments with the red blood cells of Rhesus monkeys, and identify the antibody found by Levine and Steston to be anti-Rh.
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U.S. organizes the Plasma of Britain campaign, run by Dr. Charles Drew in New York which he developed to separate and preserve blood plasma, which he finds to be a viable substitute for whole blood, Dr. Drew devises a modern and highly sterile system to process, test, and store plasma for shipment overseas by the Red Cross.
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The American Red Cross agrees to organize a civilian blood donor service to collect blood plasma for the war effort. The Red Cross collects over 13 million units of blood over the course of the war.
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Directors of independent, community blood banks join together to form a national network of blood banks called the American Association of Blood Banks.
