What is the History of Blood Banks?
A blood bank is a bank of blood or blood components, gathered as a result of blood donations, stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusions. “History of Blood Banks” by 1901 Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian physician, whom we see as the most important individual in the field of human blood, categorized the first three human Blood groups A, B and O.
Without this discovery and the subsequent research, there would be no blood banking as we know it today. 1936 Bernard Fantus, the then director of therapeutics at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, established the first Blood bank in the United States thus creating a hospital laboratory that can preserve and store donor Bloods. In 1940 Dr Charles Drew, a graduate of McGill University Medical School in Montreal, researched and found a technique for the long-term preservation of Blood plasma. This all brought us to what follows.
During 1947 The American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) was formed to “promote common goals among Blood banking facilities and the American Blood donating public.” Then in 1950 Carl Walter and W.P. Murphy, Jr., introduced the plastic bag for blood collection. On its own this does not seem like any big thing at all but by the simple act of replacing breakable glass bottles with durable plastic bags allowed for the evolution of a collection system capable of safe and easy preparation of multiple blood components from a single unit of Whole Blood.
So in 1979 An anticoagulant preservative, CPDA-1 was now introduced. It decreased wastage from expiration and facilitated resource sharing among blood banks. Newer solutions contain adenine and extend the shelf life of red cells to 42 days. The need for blood donors is a never ending gift we can freely give our fellow man so if you are not a regular donor seriously look at this. It may be you who needs the blood one day.