TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Transfusion Medicine: Introduction A1 - Aster, Jon C. A1 - Bunn, H. Franklin PY - 2016 T2 - Pathophysiology of Blood Disorders, 2e AB - Although the practice of routine, effective blood transfusion became a reality only in the 20th century, interest in transferring blood from one individual to another has a lengthy history, largely based on the idea that blood must carry the life force of the body since its excessive loss often was fatal. Initial restorative attempts consisted of drinking blood. Pliny the Elder wrote that during Roman times it was fashionable to rush into the arena to drink the blood of fallen gladiators, while other notables such as Galen advised that drinking the blood of animals would cure certain maladies. The idea of transferring blood intravenously from one person to another took root after Harvey’s description of blood circulation due to the pumping action of the heart in 1628. However, sporadic attempts to perform blood transfusions over the next several hundred years were often disastrous for both the blood donor (frequently a dog or a sheep) and the human recipient. In these early days, transfusion was particularly frowned upon in some medical circles because it ran contrary to a favored treatment of the time, bloodletting (often with leeches), leading to a ban on the procedure in France and England for a time in the late 1600s. SN - PB - McGraw-Hill Education CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/28 UR - accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1175062595 ER -