Q&A
When was the first blood transfusion?
SHORT ANSWER
In 1667, although this turned out to be a bit of a woolly procedure…
LONG ANSWER
The event that led medical science towards blood transfusions was when English physician William Harvey described, for the first time, the circulation of blood and published his findings in 1628. is led to experiments on animals, with Richard Lower performing a transfusion between dogs in 1665. en a year later, on 15 June 1667, Jean-Baptiste Denis, physician to King Louis XIV of France, carried out a transfusion with a human by giving a sickly boy a dose of lamb’s blood – miraculously, the boy lived. Denis kept experimenting, undeterred when some patients died during and after the procedure.
Not everyone was happy, though, and the Royal Society, the French government and even the Vatican banned transfusions. The science stagnated for centuries. Although, this may have been a good thing considering that it was only in the early 20th century that the distinct blood types were discovered.