On this day … some kid got sheep’s blood and lived!
Today is not one of my better post title days…regardless…
Jean-Baptiste Denys, personal physician to France’s Louis XIV, is generally credited with performing the first human blood transfusion, although some sources award that distinction to Englishman William Lower. What is not in dispute is the year — 1667 — and the patient — a 15-year-old boy who had been bled so much by his doctor that he required an infusion of blood.
The source is also not under dispute: Whoever the physician was, he used a sheep’s blood. And, somehow, the kid recovered. Source: June 15, 1667: First Human Blood Transfusion Is Performed
Sheep’s blood! Egad! Well good thing the kids lived. Hmm, wonder if there were previous attempts. Did you know that blood typing (A+, A-, O+ …) wasn’t figured out until 1907! Holey smokes!
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