ABSTRACT

The various plasma-derived proteins described in the current work are frequently included in the €eld of transfusion medicine.1-7 It is also clear that the development of blood collection and storage method was essential to the provision of plasma for fractionation. It is useful then to brieªy consider the history of transfusion medicine as a preamble to plasma fractionation and plasma protein products. The late Bernard Ficarra compiled an excellent collection of essays on the history of medicine,8 including one chapter on the history of transfusion medicine.9 Ficarra noted both the historical importance of blood in human sacri€ce and the custom of oral blood consumption as a therapeutic. Considering the current interest in the oral delivery of protein therapeutics,10,11 the oral consumption of blood is an early example of this technology. The oral administration of protein therapeutics for hemophilia was described in the 1930s.12,13 Early work14 on the clinical characterization of the Cohn fractionation products showed that oral albumin was not as effective as intravenous albumin in maintaining the nitrogen balance in human subjects.