Treatments
Blood Transfusion
Also Known As Transfusion
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Blood transfusion transfers blood or blood components from one person into another's circulation. French physician Jean-Baptiste Denys performed the first recorded animal-to-human transfusion on June 15, 1667, transferring sheep's blood into a fifteen-year-old boy, who survived only because the transfused volume was small; later fatal cases led authorities to ban the practice by 1668. British obstetrician James Blundell performed the first successful human-to-human transfusion in 1818, treating a case of postpartum hemorrhage at Guy's Hospital in London, and went on to perform ten transfusions with mixed results. Transfusion did not become reliably safe until Karl Landsteiner's 1901 discovery of the ABO blood groups explained why some transfusions succeeded and others caused fatal reactions. This atlas describes the history of the treatment and is not medical advice.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearDated here to Landsteiner's 1901 discovery of blood groups, which made transfusion reliably safe; the practice of transfusion itself is far older, tracing to Jean-Baptiste Denys's documented but often fatal animal-to-human attempts beginning in 1667, so the origin year depends on whether the treatment is dated to first attempt or to first reliably safe practice. Cross-Tradition Connections
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