ABSTRACT
The beginnings of transfusion therapy may be traced to Harvey’s discovery of the systemic circulation in 1628. In 1667 Jean Baptiste Denis reported the transfusion of lamb’s blood to a 15-year-old boy. Lacking a full understanding of the implications of blood infusion, repeated deaths followed and transfusion was abandoned. The use of blood transfusion remained dormant for the next 150 years until James Blundell recognized that only human blood should be used for human transfusion. Yet, deaths continued to occur, most likely due to blood incompatibility and hemolytic transfusion reaction. In 1900, Karl Landsteiner determined the heterogeneity of blood and the importance of blood groups, a discovery for which he would later win the Nobel Prize. The integration of Landsteiner’s work in blood typing into effective therapy was limited by technical factors such as poor vascular access and frequent clotting of blood due to the lack of understanding of coagulation (1).
