science is my life...: February 2012

DISCOVERY OF HUMAN BLOOD GROUP HISTORY

1628: Harvey discovered blood circulation

1667: French philosopher Dennis and surgeon Murrays tried the first time to transfer 150ml lamb blood to human being.

1819: Blundell completed blood transfusion from one person to another person for the first time in history.

1900: Austrian scholar Karl Landsteiner began to work on this topic since

1930: Karl Landsteiner win the Nobel Prize on human blood group

History And Experiment of Human Blood Group:

In 1900s the great Austrian biologist and physician Karl Landsteiner found that no aggregation phenomenon could be found when he put his own erythrocyte and blood serum together in a test tube. This is the turning point in his scientific life. Karl Landsteiner doing an experiment on the basis of no aggregation phenomenon. He mixed together erythrocyte and blood serum sourced from different individuals, that shows might be aggregation or no aggregation. This phenomenon was once observed by many people, but he was the only person who gave it an explanation. Erythrocyte has two kinds of specific structures that may exist alone or together. In 1901 he found that this effect was due to contact of blood with bloodserum. As a result he succeeded in identifying the three blood groups A, B and O, which he labeled C, of human blood. Landsteiner also found out that blood transfusion between persons with the same blood group did not lead to the destruction of blood cells, whereas this occurred between persons of different blood groups. Based on his findings. Blood serum has the antibody called agglutinin of specific structure in erythrocyte, when agglutinin meets with the specific structure in erythrocyte, aggregation will happen, which might be very dangerous when a person is on process of blood transfusion. 1907 the first successful blood transfusion was performed by Reuben Ottenberg at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Today it is well known that persons with blood group AB can accept donations of the other blood groups, and that persons with blood group O can donate to all other groups. Individuals with blood group AB are referred to as universal recipients and those with blood group O are known as universal donors. These donor-recipient relationships arise due to the fact that persons with AB do not form antibodies against either blood group A or B. Further, because type O blood possesses neither characteristic A nor B, the immune systems of persons with blood group AB do not refuse the donation. In today’s blood transfusions only concentrates of red blood cells without serum are transmitted, which is of great importance in surgical practice.

Then he drew the conclusion. Human blood group is genetic. His theory has placed a foundation for blood transfusion. Since blood transfusion attempts in the past always were confronted with failure, therefore common physicians restricted themselves from this field; still, a large number of scientists were carrying on various experiments relating to blood transfusion. Dramatically, the breaking-out of World War I became the event with great impetus driving the development of blood transfusion. Due to the urgent need of save the life of the wounded by war, large quantity of blood transfusion became an effective way to drive the wounded back from death. Doctor Oldenburg first applied aggregation reaction to blood matching test before blooding transfusion, and blood transfusion between human was only possible when no aggregation could be found when erythrocyte and blood serum were mixed together; this method gained great success and saved a great number of the wounded life. With continuous experiments and practices relating to blood transfusion in the following years, blood transfusion became safe; when time went to the end of 1920s, blood confusion turned a popular medical treatment in big cities in Europe and North America. 1930 Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of these achievements. For his pioneering work, he is recognised as the father of transfusion medicine