Today blood transfusion is an often-used and life-saving procedure. First attempts were recorded in the 17th century, but successful routine transfusion wasn’t possible until comparatively recently.
Two small tracts in the RCP library collections give an insight into the early history of transfusion. In 1667, physician Jean-Baptiste Denis (d.1704) wrote to the Royal Society about the revolutionary new medical experiments he had undertaken. In his 16-page publication A letter concerning a new way of curing sundry diseases by transfusion of blood he describes attempts to transfuse blood between animal and human subjects.
Denis was physician to King Louis XIV of France. His letter records transfusions between dogs, between a dog and a calf, and even from a lamb to a human patient, all apparently completed with success.
We took about three ounces [of blood] at five of the Clock in the morning, and at the same time we brought a Lamb, whose Carotis Artery we had perpar’d, out of which we immitted in the young mans Vein, about three times as much of its Arterial blood as he had emitted into the Dish, and then having stopt the orifice of the Vein with a little bolster, as is usual in other phlebotomies, we caus’d him to lie down on his Bed
A similar transfusion of blood from a sheep into a human subject was undertaken by English physician Richard Lower (c.1631–1691) in the same year.
In the following year, 1668, George Acton replied to Denis’ report with Physical reflections upon a letter written by J. Denis. This is one of only two short publications known by Acton, and we know little of his life or work.
On the title page of his Physical reflections he describes himself as ‘spagyriciis Regiis in ordinario’, or ‘maker of alchemical medicine to the king’, a title nowhere else recorded. His interest in transfusion certainly comes from the perspective of an alchemist. He comments that in hermetic (secret or occult) knowledge, the lamb is seen as ‘the meekest and most peaceable’ animal, and so its blood might thereby have lessened the fever of the patient into whom it was transfused. He is keen to see further experiments on this ‘new method of healing’.
However, the early transfusion experiments were not universally well received: Denis’ third subject died shortly after receiving sheep’s blood. Although it was not clear that the transfusions were the cause, authorities in Paris, London and Rome forbade further transfusions on humans.
Transfusions were occasionally tried during the next 150 years, particularly for cases of mental illness, but research did not intensify until the 19th century. In 1901 Karl Landsteiner published his first findings into the reactions between different red cells and blood serum: announcing the key discovery of the four blood groups. This opened the way for safer transfusions, and Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for his research in 1930.
Katie Birkwood,
Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian
Haematology is the RCP specialty of the month for June 2015.
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