WWI was a very long and gruesome war that claimed the lives of millions of people throughout the world. The war raged on for over 4 years, which caused the medical industry to greatly progress in order to keep up with the severe injuries sustained on the battlefield. One medical advancement that stands out is the creation of the blood bank and being able to keep blood from coagulating, therefore making it keep longer than a few minutes. Now having the ability to store blood to use in the future was a huge advancement and saved countless lives. Instead of needing to connect a donor to a receiver to give blood now it was much more practical to have the blood before you need it and administer it from vials. Before blood banks were used during
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People have been transferring blood for centuries before World War I, but it was considered to be extremely dangerous with a low success rate. There were many things that could go wrong while connecting two people with a tube and transporting the blood directly from the donor into the receiver. One of the major problems with blood transfusions before World War I was were that no one knew there were different blood types and mixing them could cause a massive activation of the immune system, due to it treating the donor blood cells as foreign invaders, which could potentially lead to shock, kidney failure, circulatory collapse or even death. After the discovery of the different blood types in 1901, by Karl Landsteiner, an American and Austrian biologist and physician, blood transfusions began to become safer and hadve a much higher survival rate. Another huge problem with blood vessel to vessel transfusions was that at the front line, it was all but impossible to administer the blood to a soldier this way and a suicide mission for the doctor. Many people were still very critical about how safe transferring blood was, but when the war broke out in 1914, and people were dying from the loss of blood, blood transfusions started to become acceptable. During the war many soldier’s lives were saved since the blood they needed was
People have been transferring blood for centuries before World War I, but it was considered to be extremely dangerous with a low success rate. There were many things that could go wrong while connecting two people with a tube and transporting the blood directly from the donor into the receiver. One of the major problems with blood transfusions before World War I was were that no one knew there were different blood types and mixing them could cause a massive activation of the immune system, due to it treating the donor blood cells as foreign invaders, which could potentially lead to shock, kidney failure, circulatory collapse or even death. After the discovery of the different blood types in 1901, by Karl Landsteiner, an American and Austrian biologist and physician, blood transfusions began to become safer and hadve a much higher survival rate. Another huge problem with blood vessel to vessel transfusions was that at the front line, it was all but impossible to administer the blood to a soldier this way and a suicide mission for the doctor. Many people were still very critical about how safe transferring blood was, but when the war broke out in 1914, and people were dying from the loss of blood, blood transfusions started to become acceptable. During the war many soldier’s lives were saved since the blood they needed was