Blood Transfusion, 1829 – Combating Blood Loss

Surgeon Raymond Hurt: “The history of blood transfusion is a fascinating story of ups and downs, although its full potential could not be realised until blood groups and a satisfactory anticoagulant were discovered.”

Blood transfusion transfers blood or blood components between people, usually to combat blood loss during trauma or surgery. It is also needed in treating conditions such as haemophilia and sickle-cell anaemia. Some patients need transfusions throughout their lives.

In Europe during the 1600s, many “animal-to-animal” and “animal-to-human” transfusions were attempted. The first successful person-to-person transfusion is generally credited to English obstetrician James Blundell, who began giving transfusion a scientific foundation and revived interest in a practice widely considered unsafe. 

In 1818, Blundell used several donors to treat a man dying of gastric cancer, but the man died two days later. In 1829, he transfused a husband’s blood into a woman with severe bleeding after childbirth. She survived, representing the first recorded successful transfusion.

Blundell soon realised that performing too many transfusions in a person could cause kidney damage and death. 

• Transfusion safety began improving after Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner discovered three blood groups in 1900: (A, B and O). He found that transfusions between people of the same blood group were generally safe. 
• Shortly afterwards, a fourth group, AB, was discovered. 
• With the development of electric refrigeration, the first “blood banks” opened in the 1930s. 
• Rh blood factor was discovered in 1939, after which dangerous transfusion reactions became uncommon. 

Prejudice has sometimes restricted transfusions. In Louisiana during the 1950s, for example, doctors were criminalised and prosecuted for giving a White person blood from a Black person without permission— “Black blood”.

Transfusion techniques and technologies continue to develop. Separating blood and transfusing only the required components is now common: red blood cells, platelets or plasma can be given separately. This makes blood use more effective and sometimes reduces transfusion risks. More advanced screening and testing reduce infection risk. Researchers are also developing artificial blood products as alternatives, potentially valuable when supplies are limited or compatible donors cannot be found.

Article image caption: A colourised version of The Transfusion of Blood—An Operation at the Hôpital de la Pitié (1874), Harper’s Weekly.

Historical figures mentioned: James Blundell (1791–1878), Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943)

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