Author: Abikenova Ayazhan
Translated by: Uspanova Ainura
Transfusion medicine (the science of blood transfusion issues) did not develop immediately. Until the twentieth century, doctors could only dream of treating patients with a blood transfusion. However, now, thanks to great scientists, humanity does not die from blood loss. The story of how transfusiology has reached such a level that blood transfusion has become a routine is worthy of our attention.
The understanding that blood transfusion is one of the treatment methods, and in some cases, it is the only thing that can save the patient’s life, has existed for a long time. But it is not known how the doctors put forward such a theory. The lack of knowledge about the work of the cardiovascular system and the blood system, the problem of conducting the process itself - the lack of special tools, hindered the heyday of the great discovery.
After the doctors learned how all this works, they actively began to carry out a blood transfusion. So, in 1818, the English physiologist James Blundell first performed a transfusion: a patient with postpartum hemorrhage received the blood of her husband, and this saved her life. From 1825 to 1830 Blundell performed 10 transfusions, five of which were successful. Then a gradual development began: they began to use antiseptics to avoid infection, discovered antibodies, described agglutination - gluing of red blood cells (red blood cells). However, the answer to the question: “Why is blood transfusion not suitable for everyone, and the results of the procedure are very different?” - did not find.
And so the light comes up on the whole situation Karl Landsteiner - a German infectious disease doctor who determined antibodies α and β in blood plasma and antigens A and B on red blood cells and found that in the blood of one person there cannot be antigens and antibodies of the same name. As a result, in 1900, Landsteiner discovered three blood groups and was awarded the Nobel Prize, and the scientists of Lansky in 1907 and Mass in 1910 allocated the IV group. The discovery, which everyone was waiting for, took place, but there were still not enough statements about who could receive what kind of blood and who could not. In 1912, the American Roger Lee argued that the blood of the first group can be transfused to patients with any blood group, and the blood of the fourth group is suitable for any other. Alexander Wiener and Philip Levin in 1940, under the leadership of Landsteiner, discovered the Rh factor, that is, the presence or absence of another protein on the erythrocyte membrane. Now you know where the blood description came from according to the standard for each person (0 (I), Rh +).
As you noticed, the opening of a whole branch of medicine took several centuries. Thanks to the work of scientists, doctors have the opportunity to save tens of thousands of soldiers during the war, to prevent mothers from dying of blood loss during childbirth, to regulate the volume of circulating blood in patients during operations, etc. Thus, this event contributed to the further development of other sections of medicine.
