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Blood History Timeline

  • Jan 1, 1250

    pulmonary circulation

    pulmonary circulation
    Ibn al-Nafis discovered and describes the flow of blood to and from the lungs.
  • Jan 1, 1553

    Blood Flow

    Blood Flow
    Michael Servetus suggested that blood flows from one side of the heart to the other through the lungs.
  • Vein Valves

    Vein Valves
    Fabricius published his work featuring the first drawings of vein valves.
  • Circulation of blood

    Circulation of blood
    William Harvey published his work in which he explains that blood circulates within the body and is pumped by the heart.
  • First observation/ description

    First observation/ description
    Jan Swammerdam was a 21 when he was the first person to observe red blood cells then decribe them.
  • Animal Blood Transfusion

    Animal Blood Transfusion
    Richard Lower performs the first recorded blood transfusion in animals.
  • Sheeps blood transfusion

    Sheeps blood transfusion
    Doctor Richard Lower and Edmund King gave Arthur Coga, a transfusion of several ounces of sheep's blood, which later Arthur recovered fully.
  • "25,000 times smaller then a fine grain of sand"

    "25,000 times smaller then a fine grain of sand"
    Anton van Leeuwenhoek, provides a more in depth description of red blood cells, stating their size as "25,000 times smaller than a fine grain of sand."
  • Said to be the first human transfusion

    A footnote in a medical journal credits Philip Syng Physick with the first human blood transfusion, but his work is not published.
  • The First Human Blood Transfusion

    The First Human Blood Transfusion
    James Blundell performs the first recorded human blood transfusion. He injects a patient suffering from internal bleeding with a suringe that consists of 12 to 14 ounces of blood from several different donors. The patient died after first showing improvment.
  • Platelets

    Platelets
    Sir William Osler observed small cell fragments from the bone marrow make up the bulk of clots formed in blood vessels, which come to be called platelets.
  • Cross Matching

    Cross Matching
    Dr. Reuben Ottenberg performed the first transfusion using cross matching, mainly eliminating transfusion reactions.
  • Clotting prevention

    Clotting prevention
    Albert Hustin of Brussels and Luis Agote discovered that adding sodium to blood will prevent blood from clotting.
  • Blood Refrigeration

    Blood Refrigeration
    Dr. Richard Weil descovered that blood that has been citrated can be refrigerated for a few days and still be successfully transfused.
  • Long Blood Storage

    Francis Peyton Rous and J.R. Turner develop a solution that allows blood to be stored for a few weeks after originally collected and still remain useable for transfusion.
  • Blood Depot

    Dr. Oswald Robertson established the first blood depot.
  • Blood Donor Service

    Blood Donor Service
    Percy Lane Oliver began working a blood donor service out of his house in London.
  • Transfusion for hospitals

    The Soviets were the first to establish a network of facilities to collect and store blood for use in transfusions at hospitals.
  • Cadavar Transfusioin

    Cadavar Transfusioin
    Dr. Serge Yudin is the first to test transfusing humans with cadavar blood. His test was successful. He transfused a young woman with a 60 year old mans blood.
  • "Blood Bank"

    Dr. Bernard Fantus comes up with the term "blood bank" to describe the blood donation center.
  • Stillborn

    Dr. Philip Levine and R.E. Stetson uncovered an antibody in the blood of a woman who's given birth to a stillborn that had not been discovered before. Because it was inherited from the father, it triggers the antibody production in the mother.
  • The Rh blood group

    The Rh blood group
    Dr. Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener discovered the Rh blood group.
  • Liquid Plasmas

    Liquid Plasmas
    Edwin Cohn invented a method to separate out liquid plasmas different proteins.Through this process Cohn was able to isolate the plasma components.
  • Red Cross

    Red Cross
    The American Red Cross agrees to organize a blood donor service to collect blood plasma for the war effort. The first center opened in New York on, and the Red Cross collects over 13 million units of blood over the course of the war.
  • Jaundice

    Jaundice
    Dr. Paul Beeson links jaundice to blood or plasma transfusions the patients received a few months before they developed jaundice.
  • AABB

    AABB
    American Association of Blood Banks held their first meeting in Dallas in November.
  • Plastic Blood Bag

    Plastic Blood Bag
    Dr. Carl Walter created a plastic bag for the blood. Before this, the glass bottles that were used were susceptible to contamination.
  • hemoglobin

    hemoglobin
    Dr. Max Perutz is able to understand the structure of hemoglobin- the protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen.
  • cryoprecipitates

    cryoprecipitates
    Dr. Judith Pool, discovered that slowly thawed frozen plasma yields deposits high in cryoprecipitates are found to have much greater clotting power than plasma and given to hemophiliacs to stop bleeding episodes
  • Antibodies in Hepatitis B

    Antibodies in Hepatitis B
    Dr. Baruch Blumberg identified a substance on the surface of the hepatitis B virus that triggers the production of antibodies.
  • AIDS

    AIDS
    The first cases of AIDS were reported.
  • LAV

    LAV
    Researchers isolated the virus that causes AIDS. They located it in the swollen lymph node in the neck of a AIDS patient and label it LAV (lymphadenopathy-associated virus).
  • HTLVIII

    HTLVIII
    Dr. Robert Gallo announced that he identified the virus that causes AIDS, which he called HTLV III (human T-cell lymphotropic virus), at a press conference.
  • the ELISA test

    the ELISA test
    After tons of Americans were infected with AIDS from the blood transfusions, the first blood-screening test to detect HIV antibodies is licensed by the U.S. government.
  • Plasma Shortage

    There was a plasma shortage in Britain during World War II