ABSTRACT
Blood Donor Screening and Transfusion Safety 45
Elizabeth J. Kicklighter and Harvey G. Klein National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
I. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
The concept of blood transfusion began with the description of the circulation of blood by William Harvey in 1628. By the late 1660s, Jean Denis in France and Richard Lowery in England were performing the first documented blood transfusions into humans. Both used animals as the source of blood (1). In view of what is now known about “antispecies” antibodies, it is not surprising that the first description of a hemolytic transfusion reaction (HTR) was recorded by Denis in 1668 after giving a second infusion of calf’s blood to a patient. Some of the same symptoms described with this reaction-diaphoresis, back pain, tachycardia, dyspnea, gastrointestinal distress, and dark urine-remain classic findings for the severe HTRs seen today (2). Denis’s patient died after a third transfusion attempt, and blood transfusions were subsequently banned by the French and British medical societies (3).
