ABSTRACT
The history of heparin-derived oligosaccharides began with heparin in 1916 when McLean discovered a substance derived from canine liver that prevented blood from clotting.1 The new anticoagulant was named ‘heparin’, reflecting the compound’s abundance in liver. Heparin was not practically applied by physicians until the early 1930s when large-scale isolation procedures on bovine lung and porcine intestinal mucosa were developed to make heparin available as a purified, plentiful and inexpensive supply safe for human use. An early documentation of the clinical trials of heparin was published in 1939 and the effectiveness of heparin treatment in the prevention of postoperative thrombosis was quickly established.2
