Essay On Blood Typing

Blood Typing: Transfusions

Imagine a papercut. While it is painful, and somewhat irritating, it is never close to life-threatening. However, as a hemophiliac, there would be a chance that a small slit on a finger could continue to bleed for hours. What then? There are plethora’s of genetic and circumstantial diseases, such as hemophilia, which leave the patient at the whim of donations and transfusions. Blood transfusions, first recorded in the seventeenth century, have saved countless lives since, though the success of such a procedure depends on blood typing (“Blood Transfusion”). Blood typing, testing an individual’s blood to determine the ‘type’ or category, was discovered and developed mainly by Karl Landsteiner, and was introduced into the medical world in the twentieth century (“Blood

For centuries, doctors have known that blood affects healing in many ways. What began with bloodletting and leaches became blood donations, transfusions, and hundreds of thousands of saved lives (McGovern). However, to get where scientists and doctors are today, many errors were made: painful lessons that resulted in death. Jean Baptiste Denis, a French doctor in the seventeenth century recorded the saddening results of his attempted blood transfusion using sheep’s blood (“Blood Transfusion”). His thought process for such an experiment was sound. At the time, there was no evidence that sheep's blood was any different than ours, and sheep’s blood was far more readily available. To Denis’s discontent, however, the blood transfusions were unsuccessful. Even when using human blood, not one trial succeeded (“Blood Types”). He simply lacked the knowledge and skill to perform such a task. He needed to be able to discern and accurately categorize blood as well as find a patience receptive to that blood type. Living