[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*] Blood transfusions have been carried out for hundreds of years. They were discovered by William Harvey in the late 1620’s. Between then, and the 1900’s, Many patients had died from blood transfusions. Actually about 50%, and doctors had no idea why that was. We now know that this is because two individuals may not have the same “blood type” This was discovered in 1901 by Karl Landsteiner.
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]After his discovery, more people started surviving blood transfusions. To this day, over 1 billion people have had successful blood transfusions thanks to Karl Landsteiner. Mixing blood from two people with different blood types can cause blood clumping or agglutination. The clumped red blood cells can crack and cause toxic reactions. This toxic reaction killed many people before the discovery of blood types. Karl Landsteiner discovered that blood clumping was a reaction that occurs when the person receiving a blood transfusion has antibodies against the donor blood cells. His work to determine blood groups helped blood transfusions to be carried out safely. This way, no person was having a toxic reaction because their blood didn’t have antibodies against anothers. The different blood types have different presence in protein molecules called antigens and antibodies. There are more than 20 known blood group systems but AB0 and Rh are the most important in blood transfusions.
There are the four different blood groups in the AB0 blood group system. ( A, B, AB, 0)
Some people have an Rh antigen. Those people are called Rh+. Those who don’t are called Rh-. Therefore there are 8 blood types that people can have, ARh+, ARh-, BRh+, BRh-, ABRh+, ABRh-, ORh+ and ORh-.
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]Karl Landsteiner was born on June 14, 18. He was an Austrian biologist and physician. He earned his medical degree at the University of Vienna in 1891, Where he later became a professor. Although he did many other scientific works, such as the co-discovery of the polio virus in 1909, he is most known for his discovery and classification of blood groups. After his discovery in 1901 and many years of work following, he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology(medicine) in 1930.
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*] Because of his discovery, many people from the early 1900’s until today have survived blood transfusions. The grouping of blood has helped to give blood to HIV and hepatitis patients as well as many other ways in which blood is either used in transfusions, or made into medicine. Over 1 billion people have survived blood transfusions to this day, and this is mostly dependent on Karl Landsteiner’s discoveries.
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*] The relationship between blood type and disease
Various sicknesses, diseases and cancers have been linked to certain blood types. For instance, group A patients and stomach cancer, and group O with peptic ulcers and toxemia of pregnancy, Now, doctors are trying to do many more studies in order to find a relation between blood groups and diseases. After loads and loads of mathematic computation, it has been determined that this is either happening because of the environment, or somehow because the people have the same blood type. Research is still going on by scientists to this day in order to determine, and possibly help lower numbers in certain diseases that are more common in a certain blood type.
http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Woolf%20B%201955%20on%20estimating%20the%20relation.pdf
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/landsteiner/readmore.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_donation
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Landsteiner.html
http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Woolf%20B%201955%20on%20estimating%20the%20relation.pdf
Also, go to this page to watch a video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/148427/milestones-in-science-and-engineering-karl-landsteiner-and-the-ab0-blood-group-system
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