Blood Week

 Fun Fact #572

Bleeding Edge Technology

For as far back as recorded history can practically tell us, Blood has always been seen as important with it even being referred to in (The Bible) Genesis 9:4 where it's mentioned that “Life is in the Blood”. Despite this early recognition it took until the 1600s for blood to actually be investigated. With William Harvey conducting Blood flow research leading to him attempting the transfer of blood from one animal to another meeting success. Yet when he then tried putting sheep blood in his colleagues several of them died. This unfortunate situation quickly led to both Britain, and France banning the procedure, and its abandonment for over 160 years. 

In case you are unsure what went wrong here, in short Blood types are a major issue. In most cases it's hard to know if people have the same blood type. In cases where they are not, the Body’s immune system will attack and destroy the foreign blood cells releasing free Hemoglobin (Iron containing Protein) into the blood and causing an allergic reaction in the patient. This only becomes more complex with zenotranfusions (transfusions between different –specifically vertebrate– species) as it's even harder to find a matching blood type:

For example, cats have 3 known blood types, cattle have 11,] dogs have at least 13,  pigs have 16, and horses have over 30 Blood Types. As such only a handful of countries today do blood transfusions for Pets, and of those that do only The US and UK don’t limit it to Dogs and horses. What makes Dogs and Horses so special? In short their immune systems do not reject the VERY FIRST blood transfusion they get regardless of type since their body doesn't release antibodies against foreign blood cells until it encounters it negatively (the animal has to be sensitized for the antibodies to be released). This can actually occur in some humans too but it is rare and the possibility is usually ignored since testing for it may sensitize the patient and cause them to release antibodies rendering the test useless regardless of the results.

Fun Fact #573

Type Casting

In 1818, Dr. James Blundell was at a loss for what to do. As a British obstetrician (medical study of pregnancy and birth) at a time when postpartum hemorrhage deaths (severe loss of blood from childbirth) were at an all time high. Not wanting to lose any more patients he turned to methods deemed “extreme” by the Medical community at the time and got the information on how to perform Blood transfusions from The Vatican’s Library. Better yet he had an Idea on how to improve the success rate.

 Thus when the next woman he assisted began to hemorrhage, He got her Husband hooked up and transferred blood successfully between them saving her life. He then went on to do this another 10 times (5 successful) before publishing his results. While he was widely regarded with disgust it was hard to dispute that there was potential to the procedure which allowed the bans to be lifted –although most hospitals still didn't put it into practice even in life threatening situations since the failure rate was around 40% of procedures resulting in death. It was considered “Unscientific” hence why many horror novels at the time referenced the practice (Dracula is famous for it) as a way to make readers uneasy using the "Religious Cult-like Practices”.  

Fun Fact #574

99 Bottles of Blood on the field

While many held Dr. Blundell’s Blood Transfusions negatively, The Endingborough Royal Infirmary on the other hand did not think it was unscientific and instead pushed for further breakthroughs in the field. Their public competition ultimately led to Austrian Karl Landsteiner to discover blood types at The Medical University of Vienna in 1901 by mixing blood samples together in vials to see if they clot in his “Blood Serum Test”. Using this he labelled 3 groups A,B, and C and his system of physicians learning their blood type and then using that information to test the patient's blood led to an increase in patient safety (estimated to be around 75% success rate).

 Yet despite this more advanced knowledge by World War 1 most Transfusions were still done arm-to arm with The Russian’s Doctor Jan Jansky inventing new technology to achieve this the most efficiently –albeit with their own classification system of blood types 1 through 4*. While successful, in many cases the Battlefront provided a situation where it was hard to get unclotted blood in time to be used. Once again the Russians made the first advance on this front, with figuring out the approximate amount of time blood remains usable in corpses, –thankfully it was never widely used. Then Albert Hustin in Belgium had the first successful Bottle-to-Arm transfusion using diluted blood, which The Rockefeller University analyzed and learned that Sodium Nitrate was a useful Anti-coagulant to delay blood Clotting. Yet this discovery was made too late for use in WW1, as supply couldn't match demand made worse by the fact they couldn't solve the issue of bottles of blood breaking from being knocked around or otherwise broken in near combat situations.

*  Russian Blood System compared to International: (1=O , 2= A 3=B, and 4 = AB)

Fun Fact #575

Something To Bank On

After Francis Peyton Rous, and Joseph R. Turner figured out that blood could be preserved up to 4 weeks with the Rous-Turner Strategy (Sodium Citrate, and Sucrose) in 1915, The Royal Army began being able to store blood but it never reached the levels needed in the War since the infrastructure and training weren’t established yet. 

Then came the interwar period where countries analyzed the results of The Great War, and The Battle of Passchendaele stood out like a sore thumb since that battle was known for unusually low casualties on the British side, with remarkably quick recovery times all thanks to The R.A.M.C. group attached to that field preparing for the battle by stockpiling blood ahead of time.  

This knowledge kicked off the event now known as “The Blood Race” where countries rushed to advance their knowledge of Blood Transfusions. Britain had a Good head start when Percy Lance Oliver founded the world’s first blood Donor service in 1921 (The London Blood Transfusion Service). Yet As always Russia wasn’t far behind thanks to the efforts of Alexander Bogdanov and his group in Moscow in 1925. . .which soon got sidetracked when they began trying to distill blood into an elixir of Youth and reinjecting it into their system which ultimately killed Bogdanov in 1928 (interestingly one of his followers was Rasputin).

Then Chicago entered The Blood Race in 1937 when Cook County Director of Therapeutics  Bernard Fantus founded the first American Blood Bank with the novel idea to preserve and refrigerate blood further expanding its shelf life. Cook County also came up with the idea of putting the glass bottles in sealed tin cans to prevent their breaking from jostling during transport. Fantus would then be called to Congress to explain his practices in Depth.

Image of  Bernard Fantus Taken in 1935 (five years before his death in 1940 from a Heart attack (Interestingly he was a Hungarian immigrant who had met some of the Physicians behind earlier Transfusion advancements during a visit to Vienna)

Fun Fact #576

A Bloody Secret

Soon after The US Congress learned how Fantus preserved Blood they soon made copies of “The Fantus System” across the US with the intent states would serve their local needs. This didn't last long however since Americans didn't have the same Taboo around Blood Transfusions leading to an unexpected volume of volunteers. Taking advantage of this opportunity, The US decided to test how their Blood Transfusion Network would operate in a wartime setting, and it just so happens that The Spanish Republican forces had requested medical aid from The WW1 Allied forces. The opportunity was just too good to pass up. 

Soon US medics were on the battlefield, at first just in Medical tents but they soon developed advancements by modifying vans for medical use to chase battles to find the wounded. They didn't just do bloodwork however but the whole kit’n’caboodle dental, medical, and more. As they continued they pioneered better practices, increasing survival rates each time. Soon they organized into The AMB (American Medical Bureau) treating soldiers and civilians from all sides and countries. Yet they soon learned to hide their advances from the Soviets who were supposed to protect the AMB since whenever an advancement was made the people responsible for that advancement soon disappeared (it was later learned they were shipped off to Russia to teach more people there whether they agreed to or not). 

Yet these secrets cost lives on the front until finally the Civil war came to an end in 1939 and the AMB sent everything they learned to only Spain, The US and The UK. The Soviet Union could not be trusted and at this point it had become clear that Germany couldn't be either as AMB who worked with German Medics reported them forcing children to donate blood in some cases killing the child –although this was only proven to have occurred during World War 2. Thus the Blood Race surged on. 

Image of an AMB Medical Van in The Spanish Civil War.

Fun Fact #577

Serum

As the Spanish Civil War came to an end The complete set of data collected was held only by The US, UK, and Spain and as they poured over the data one thing quickly became clear: weren’t just a potential concept but rather a life saving advancement with just two major drawbacks. To use it effectively you need Blood as soon as possible in a usable state for the afflicted and to know the Blood type of the injured.
The first was fixed slowly with largescale testing to record soldier’s blood types and issue new dog tags with a section for Blood types. The second fix was discovered in 1940 when Edwin Joseph Cohn pioneered the process of Blood Fractionation or separation of the proteins in Blood. You see only 45% of Human blood are red Blood cells, the rest either pertains to Clotting and Immune system Defense (Known as the Buffy Coat), and the rest is Blood Plasma. While this may sound counter-intuitive to thin blood, by removing the part which dies in storage first (red blood cells) you could boost the shelf life dramatically. 

Once separated, The US Surgeon Generals of The US and Army working together discovered that by Freeze drying the Plasma it could be stored at room temperature for up to 2 years allowing medics to carry plasma into battle. To use it all they’d need to do was open up the tin can then glass bottle inside and mix in distilled water. After 5 minutes you’d have a capsule of usable blood for 4 hours. This saved countless lives not just in the past but works wonderfully for hospitals to save some blood during seasons of plenty for use when blood supplies run low –Hence why many Blood banks prefer Plasma donations whenever possible.

Yet when someone’s bleeding out 5 minutes is still a long time, yet it was the best we had for the first half of World War 2 giving the Allies an edge in medical care. Then Dr. Cohn had a second breakthrough in learning how to remove the Buffy coat, leaving only Serum Albium (from Blood Plasma) left, which is the most numerous protein in Mammalian Blood. The protein regulates Blood (Oncotic) Pressure, and delivers fatty acids, Hemin (contains iron), and Calcium throughout the body. Better yet because it lacks the buffy coat and isn't truly alive, it could be stored in Liquid form for just as long as Freeze Dried Plasma but now all you had to do to use it was open the bottle and hook up the injured. This mere change in time required to deliver blood is estimated to have rescued thousands of men each month during World War 2 which would have otherwise have died from Shock. This did not go unnoticed by the Ranks either who took to calling Serum Albium as simply “Serum” and some soldiers took to carrying a vial of it wherever they went. Today “Serum” is still used although to make it it requires full plasma. 

Coincidently The Rock River Blood Bank has 3 machines for collecting blood plasma at each of their locations which are almost always empty and appointments can be made in advance to reserve a seat by calling this handy phone # 815-965-8751 or through their website www.rrvbc.com 

Fun Fact #558

Blood Spots

Warning If you suffer from anxiety in relation to fear, then please don't read the following Fun Fact. Message me and I will send you a replacement fun fact. Thank you and please have a wonderful day.

While blood transfusions are a wonderful bit of life saving tech being the most common procedure done in The US, UK and France today, it's not actually common on the world stage. In truth, as of October 2023, out of 195 countries in the world, only 77 have blood transfusions, only 55 have agreed upon standards on transfusions (testing for Pathogens for example), and of those only 33 proactively collect blood. Worse yet 12 of those original 77 countries use a completely different classification system instead using the 4 types system invented by the Soviet Union. Although The World Health Organization (WHO) does collect blood type information from 108 countries.

This is in part because some populations of people who believe Blood Transfusions are against their religion. A good example are Jehovah Witnesses who believe it is “God's will to abstain from Blood” and thus refuse to even donate or accept blood. Yet the more common reason is because countries just don’t have the Blood Collection Network set up to supply their hospitals with local blood meaning that if they do have blood for transfusions it's either shipped in at great cost, or comes from less reliable sources which is why some countries don’t have as much regulation on it.

In short If you travel and are concerned if the country you are visiting even does blood transfusions and what they do in relation to it the information can (usually) be found on The International Society of Blood Transfusions’ Website ( www.isbtweb.org ). Their main goal is the sharing of information on Blood Transfusions and setting up collection networks in countries that need them to lower the related costs while increasing patient safety. 

Wow, it's been awhile since we’ve done a Saturday Fun fact … Sorry about that AWS. I know traditionally we do space themed fun facts on Saturdays but this was just some extra information I thought was interesting. I hope you can forgive me. Thank you and please have a wonderful day.

*  Russian Blood System compared to International: (1=O , 2= A 3=B, and 4 = AB)