Tag Archives: blood type

Karl Landsteiner and the discovery of blood groups

February 11, 2020

Safia Benaissa Mostganem, Algeria   Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943), Austrian pathologist, hematologist and serologist; discoverer of the blood groups. Albert Hilscher. circa 1910. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons Karl Landsteiner was the Austrian scientist who recognized that humans had different blood groups and made it possible for physicians to transfuse blood safely. He entered medical school at […]

Blood debt

February 10, 2020

Jules Reich Chicago, Illinois, United States   A patient donating blood, Australia, c. late 1940s. Via Wikimedia. In 1937, the first U.S. blood bank opened in Chicago. It was originally called a Blood Preservation Laboratory, but its founder, Dr. Bernard Fantus, changed the name to blood bank. For someone who spent a large part of […]

Blood type and personality

February 10, 2020

Nonoko Kamai Nagoya, Japan   ICS code block for blood bag identification (sample). Photo by ICS International GmbH. 2013. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. Why do Japanese people believe in a relationship between blood type and personality? Beginning in the 1970s, the blood type personality hypothesis became fashionable in Japan and it is still popular […]

The paradox of blood donation

February 10, 2020

Beukou Steve Limbe, South-West Cameroon Team HERO Cameroon organizing 2nd annual blood drive 2019     (Source: NGO HERO CAMEROON) Team HERO Cameroon and voluntary blood donors during blood drive 2019 (Source: NGO  HERO CAMEROON) Exchange visit at the National Blood Transfusion Service in Mauritius 2019 (Source: Association of Commonwealth University Summerschool 2019) “Please I urgently […]

Ludwik Hirszfeld: The story of one life that changed thousands of others

January 30, 2020

Paulina Kowalińska Wrocław, Poland   Ludwik Hirszfeld in 1916, during the Serbian war. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. “To a far greater extent the group reactions have been used in forensic medicine for the purpose of establishing paternity. The possibility of arriving at decisions in such cases rests on the studies of the hereditary transmission of […]