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2500 BCE
Egyptians used bloodletting to try to cure disease
Bloodletting is the act of removing blood from a person with the goal of treating a medical condition. -
500 BCE
Greek distinguished between arteries and veins
Observed that vessels were completely drained of blood after death while other long thin vessels were filled with it, Greece didn't realize that they just distinguished arteries from veins. -
Anton van Leeuwenhoek viewed blood cells under a microscope
Anton was looking at animal and plant tissues and observed what he described as "little cockles... no bigger than a course sand-grain." He was the first person to discover blood cells. -
First blood transfusion performed
In Philadelphia, an American physician Philip Syng Physick, performed the first human blood transfusion. -
Karl Landsteiner discovered three blood types: A, B, O
Landsteiner found that there are substances in the blood, antigens and antibodies, that induce clumping of red cells when red cells of one type are added to those of a second type. He recognized three groups: A, B, and O based on their reactions to each other. -
Alfred Decastello disscovered fourth blood type: AB
In 1902, two of Dr. Landsteiner’s colleagues, Alfred von Decastello and Adriano Sturli, discovered the fourth blood group, AB, further elucidating the differences in compatibility among blood types. -
Percy Oliver established the first blood donor service
As the Honorary Secretary of the Camberwell branch of the Red Cross, he got a call from the nearby King’s College Hospital in urgent need of a blood donor. He went to the hospital and saw Sister Linstead, a Red Cross worker, become the first voluntary blood donor. He was so struck by this experience that he and his wife immediately set about organising a panel of blood donors locally. -
Mayo Clinic developed a method to store blood for transfusions
The first blood bank was established by Dr John S. Lundy, Head, Section of Anesthesia, at Mayo Clinic in 1935. He had kept citrated blood in the “ice box” for as long as 14 days and found that it could be administered with the usual benefits to the patient and without reaction. -
Dr. Bernard Fantus established the first blood bank
1937 Bernard Fantus, director of therapeutics at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, establishes the first hospital blood bank in the United States. -
Karl Landsteiner discovered the Rh protein
The Rh blood group system was discovered in 1940 by Karl Landsteiner and A.S. Weiner. Since that time a number of distinct Rh antigens have been identified, but the first and most common one, called RhD, causes the most severe immune reaction and is the primary determinant of the Rh trait. -
First case of AIDS recorded in the Congo
David Ho and colleagues from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York told a conference they traced the very first case of HIV infection to a man living in what was then the Belgian Congo in 1959. The scientists found HIV in a blood sample taken from the man, who was a member of the Bantu tribe. -
Robert Gallo identified the virus causing AIDS
On May 4, 1984, Gallo and his collaborators published a series of four papers in the scientific journal Science demonstrating that a retrovirus they had isolated, called HTLV-III in the belief that the virus was related to the leukemia viruses of Gallo's earlier work, was the cause of AIDS. -
Development of ELISA test to screen for diseases such as HIV
The first HIV antibody test, developed in 1985, was designed to screen blood products, not to diagnose AIDS. -
Scientists began developing blood-screening tests for infectious diseases
Two tests that screen for indirect evidence of hepatitis are developed and implemented, hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) and the alanine aminotransferase test (ALT).
