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Help Donate Blood

In association with
Hero DMC Heart Institute, Ludhiana

Welcome to Help Blood Donate

History of Blood donation

Circulation of blood in our body was first described by in 1613 by William Harvey which originated the thought that blood can be taken out and given back as well. In 1665, Richard Lower did first time public demonstration of transfusion of blood from one dog to another and stressed need of this techneque in severe blood loss. On 15th June, 1667, Jean Dennis fist time performed blood transfusion in a 15 yr. old boy.  He also described first time the clinical signs of hemolytic transfusion reaction in 1667 James Bundell was first to advocate use of human blood in 1818. But the major issue in human blood transfusion was its nature to clot and difficulty to store. Bischoff first time used defibrinated blood to avoid these issues.

The present techneque of blood transfusion was evolved by great work of Landsteiner. In 1901, he gave the first blood grouping system i.e. AB system. 40 yrs later, he gave the secpnd most important typing i.e. Rh typing of blood. In 1907, Reuben Ottenberg first time performed compatibility testing based on ABO system before blood transfusion. By yr. 1914, the anticoagulants were developed which solved the major issue of clotting and storage of citrated blood became a routine. By 1943, ACD (Acid Citrate Dextrose) became a routine storage method of donated blod. In 1947, first blood centre came into existance in Chicago. Since 1949, glass bottles were slowly replaced with plastic bags to store blood.

Voluntary blood donation took pace in early 1970’s but this came with disadvantages as blood donation by professional donors for excahnge of money resulted in many disease transmission in recipients. This trend was reduced to 50% in 1971 when donated blood was screened for Hepatitis B antigen. In 1980’s screening of high risk donors for infectious diseases came infor practice. Similarly screening for HIV came into practice in 1985. In late 90’s, more advanced screening procedures came into practice which could exclude donors for window period for infectious diseases.