Tag: blood
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A medical visionary
David GreenChicago, Illinois, United States The year was 1967. My father had just had his prostate removed and was having considerable post-surgical pain. On the fifth post-operative day, he collapsed suddenly and could not be resuscitated. The post-mortem examination showed multiple fresh blood clots in his lungs. I was devastated but should not have been…
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Thalassemia
David GreenGeorge HonigGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States The thalassemias comprise a large and diverse group of genetic disorders which share as a common feature a deficiency, or in the most severe forms a total absence, of one or more of the globin chains of hemoglobin. It was first recognized as a clinical entity distinct from…
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The curious history of autologous blood transfusions: Syringes and cheesecloths
Denis ChenNewcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom Autologous blood transfusion, the infusion of a patient’s own blood, is a relatively recent procedure. It was preceded historically by the classical descriptions of the blood by Hippocrates1 and Galen2; by the discovery of the circulation of blood by William Harvey and the description of the red blood cells by microscopist…
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The discovery of heparin
Mostafa ElbabaDoha, Qatar The sulfated glycosaminoglycan known as heparin is the most common anticoagulant used in clinical medicine. Its therapeutic role is to increase antithrombin activity. While its physiologic role in humans is not fully understood, heparin is stored and secreted from mast cells at sites of tissue injury and is believed to provide local…
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Tales of a sickler
Phebe SalamiGwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria This piece is a work of fiction inspired by real-life stories of sickle cell disease. There are a thousand and one ways to tell a story. I guess this is just another one of those ways, my own way of telling this story… I wished I was like all the other…
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The man shackled on 4 Northwest
Andria AlbertTucson, Arizona, United States In one of the patient rooms tucked into the Northwest (NW) wing of the fourth floor of the hospital, there lay a particular man. Upon walking into his room, you would find nothing extraordinary about him. He is young, early thirties, with a head full of curly brown hair and…
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Blood and hate: The anti-Semitic origin of the fabled first transfusion
Matthew TurnerMcChord, Washington, United States Introduction It is a story often repeated in medical textbooks: in 1492, Innocent VIII lay dying. His physician attempted the first recorded blood transfusion, transfusing the blood of three children into the deteriorating Pope. The treatment failed, and Innocent’s uneasy reign over Rome ended shortly afterwards. The story, set nearly…
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AIDS: Thru a glass darkly
S.E.S. MedinaBenbrook, Texas, United States I sat in the deep, cool shade of a stout, leafy Texas cedar escaping the torrid summer heat, idle thoughts meandering. Cotton-ball clouds grazed lazily across their azure prairie. The pervasive insane miasma swirling like a whirlwind around COVID-19 reminded me of days past when a very different virus dominated…
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Xenotransfusion: blood from animals to humans
The idea of infusing the blood of animals into humans was first proposed in 1658 by the French monk Dom Robert des Gabets soon after William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood. Experiments consisting of transfusing blood from one species to another followed. In 1665 in Oxford Richard Lower transfused blood from one…
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On the way to school
Mary JumbelicSyracuse, New York, United States A thin line of blood oozed from a shallow cut in the skin, like the first stroke of an artist’s brush on a blank canvas. The second and third incisions intersected the first to form a large Y-shape. Sanguinous fluid beaded up along their lengths. As the scalpel penetrated…