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300
300-B.C.E-Egypt
Herophilus of Chalcedon, determines that arteries are thicker than veins and carry blood. -
400
400 B.C.E- Hippocrates
Hippocrates, or also known as the preeminent physician of antiquity, states that the body is comprised of four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, and their imbalance causes disease. -
425
450-400 B.C.E-Empodocles
A Greek philosopher in Sicily named Empodocles, says that the organ of sense is the heart and that all matter is comprised of four "roots" such as earth, fire, air, and water. -
500
500 B.C.E-Alcmaeon of Croton
An aminal practicer named Almcmaeon of Croton, sees that arteries and veins are not the same. -
Jan 1, 1200
mid-1200s-Cairo
Eminent Cairo, a physician discovers and describes pulmonary circulation: the flow of blood to and from the lungs. -
1603-Padua
Fabricius, an anatomist from Padua, features the first drawings of vein valves in his published book. -
1628-William Harvey
British physician William Harvey rxplains that blood ciruculates within the body and is pumped by the heart his published masterwork EXERCITATIO ANATOMICA DE MOTU CORDIS ET SANGUINIS IN ANIMALIBUS. -
Blood Cells
Jan Swammerdam, a 21-year-old Dutch microscopist, is the first person to observe and describe red blood cells. -
Capillary System
Italian anatomist Marcello Malpighi observes the capillary system using a rudimentary microscope and observes that the network of fine vessels that connect the arteries and the veins. -
In England
Richard Lower performs the first recorded blood transfusion in animals. He did this with a crude syringe made of goose quill and bladder, created by famed architect Christopher Wren, in which he connects the jugular vein of a dog he's bled to the neck artery of second dog, resuscitating the former. -
First Transfusion
French physician Jean-Baptiste Denis transfuses a teenage boy suffering from a persistent fever with nine ounces of lamb's blood. He attaches the lamb's carotid artery to a vein in the boy's forearm, without the patient suffering any negative consequences. Denis uses the procedure on several other patients, until the death of Antoine Mauroy, whom Denis transfuses twice with calf's blood. -
Ban of Transfusions
In 1668, Dr. Denis sues Antoine Mauroy's widow for slandering his reputation. The case leads to the French Parliament's ban on all transfusions involving humans. -
Red Blood Cells
Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch microscopist, provides a more in depth description of red blood cells, even stating their size, "25,000 times smaller than a fine grain of sand." -
William Hewson
British anatomist William Hewson details his book his research on blood coagulation, including a successful arresting clotting and isolating a substance from plasma he has called "coagulable lymph." -
Human-to-Human
Philadelphia physician Philip Syng Physick is credited with the first human-to-human blood transfusion. -
First Real Transfusion
British physiologist James Blundell performs the first recorded human-to-human blood transfusion. He did it using a syringe, he injects a patient suffering from internal bleeding with 12 to 14 ounces of blood from several donors. However, the patient dies after initially showing improvement. -
Platelets
Sir William Osler sees that small cell fragments from the bone marrow make up the whole of clots formed in blood vessels and these cell fragments will come to be called platelets. -
Karl
Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner publishes his discovery of the three main human blood groups in which he calls A, B, and C, which he later changes to O. On his chart, it shows the serum and red cells of an initial set of six blood specimens. -
1914
Researchers Albert Hustin of Brussels and Luis Agote of Buenos Aires discover that adding sodium citrate to blood will prevent it from clotting. -
New York Sinai Hospital
Dr. Richard Lewisogn Weil determines that citrated blood can be refrigerated and stored for a few days and then successfully transfused. -
New York, New York
Francis Peyton Rous and J.R. Turner develop a citrate-glucose solution that allows blood to be stored for weeks after collection and still remain viable for transfusion. -
Dr. Oswald Robertson
While serving in the U.S. Army, he collected and storeed type O blood, with citrate-glucose solution, during the arrival of casualties during the Battle of Cambrai in World War I. He creates the first blood depot. -
Home Operating
Percy Lane Oliver begins operating a blood donor service out of his home in London. He recruits volunteers who agree to be on 24-hour call and to travel to local hospitals to give blood as the need arises. -
Citrated Blood
At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, a group of anesthesiologists, are the first to begin storing citrated blood and utilizing it for transfusions within a hospital setting in the U.S. -
Antibody
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 conclude that a factor in the blood of the fetus, inherited from the father, triggers the antibody production in the mother. -
Karl Again
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. -
Plasma
Substitute for liquid plasma, Harvard biochemist Edwin Cohn invents a method to separate out its different proteins (or fractions). -
1941
The American Red Cross agrees to organize a civilian blood donor service to collect blood plasma for the war effort.
Philadelphia surgeon Dr. Isidor Ravdin successfully treats victims of the Pearl Harbor attack with albumin to increase blood volume. -
Oxygen
Dr. Max Perutz working at Cambridge University, England, is able to unravel the structure of hemoglobin, the protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen using X-rays. -
Late 1960s
Drs. Kenneth M. Brinkhous and Edward Shanbrom produce a very concentrated form of Factor VIII by pooling large amounts of plasma that generate a lot of cyro, which is redissolved, treated, filtered, and centrifuged. So the powder's clotting power is 100 times stronger than raw plasma, easily stored in a portable vial, and can be injected with a syringe by the hemophilia patient. -
NIH
Dr. Baruch Blumberg of the National Institutes of Health identifies a substance on the surface of the hepatitis B virus that triggers antibodies. Ultimately this leads to the development of a test to detect the presence of hepatitis B antibodies, thereby identifying infected donors; the test is mandated by the FDA. -
Most Notable Disease
Researchers at Dr. Luc Montagnier's lab at the Institut Pasteur, in France, find out the virus that causes AIDS. They locate it in the swollen lymph node in the neck of a Parisian AIDS patient and label it LAV virus. -
1987-2002
Many more sensitive tests are made to screen donated blood for infectious diseases. -
130 CE-200 CE-Galen
Claudius Galenus becomes one of the most important physicians in history, dissecting on animals, he successful proves that arteries contain blood, but also states that the system of arteries and veins are completely distinct, and 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. -
2500 B.C.E- Egyptians
This is when Egyptians used bleeding as a way to treat new patients. An example is one patient being bleed from the neck and foot.