Why split into blood groups and tragic history stories

Finding blood groups is a great discovery of medicine, which has saved millions of lives every year.

We must live to the point where everyone must know four basic blood groups including A, B, O and AB. But where do we have to distinguish each blood type? Why not classify as human blood, cat blood, monkey blood, but have to name it according to complexity? Please, that achievement is the scientific mark of centuries.

Finding a blood group is an achievement that bears the scientific mark of centuries.

From the failures in history

Come back to the Renaissance, when people can die from hemorrhage and blood transfusion is still considered something too crazy. In the 1600s, a French doctor injected immature calf blood into the body of a madman. The consequences were tragic: the man began to sweat, vomited, urinated black water, and died quickly after the next blood transfusion.

The experiment caused a bad reputation for blood transfusions over 150 years. By 1817, the British doctor - James Blundell could not bear the fact that his patients had hemorrhage to die during childbirth, he decided to use blood transfusion technique, at least the patient still had a chance. to live instead of sitting and watching them go.

The drawing depicts the experiment of Blundell.

Blundell believes that human blood is transmitted to humans and decided to use 400ml of blood from the donor to the patient through the tubing and needles system. The patient felt better, but still died after 2 days. He continued to conduct 10 similar experiments in the following years, but only 4 survived.

Blundell was right about the new human blood being transmitted to people, but not enough. A person can simply receive blood from certain people.

To breakthrough medical achievements

In 1930, an Austrian doctor Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the work of finding blood . He noted that when blood transfusions, red blood cells of the mixture begin to have agglutination , not only in the blood of the patient, but when the blood of the healthy people is mixed, there is a case of that phenomenon.

Portrait of the person who found the blood group - Karl Landsteiner.

He began collecting blood samples from everyone in the laboratory, then split each sample into two parts: red blood cells and serum. He proceeded to mix this erythrocyte with the other serum to observe the phenomenon of agglutination.

After so many times, he divided the samples into 3 groups: A, B and C (C is now O blood type) and discovered some certain rules: Group A red blood cells when mixed with Group A serum will not be agglutinated, but when mixed with Group B serum, the cells will become lumpy.

Each red blood cell contains its special antigen.

This phenomenon is explained by modern science that every red blood cell contains its special antigen. For example, RBC A contains antigen A, erythrocyte B with antigen B. O erythrocytes have no antigens and erythrocytes AB have both antigens A and B.

Basically, antigens will stimulate the body's immune system to produce antibodies, which explains why when blood transfusions are not correct, the body will produce reactions against antigens (blood type itself). infused), causing the patient to die. Blood A contains Anti B antibodies, blood B contains Anti A. antibodies. Especially blood O contains both Anti A antibodies and Anti B, while AB blood does not contain antibodies.

When blood transfusions, if antigen A encounters Anti A antibodies (eg blood A passes to blood B for example), it will cause agglutination and the patient will die.

Agglutination occurs when antigen A encounters Anti A. antibodies.

Know what blood group to do?

Landsteiner's study opened a new door for medicine about safe blood transfusions, saving millions of lives around the world. Scientists have continued to study and provide a basic blood transfusion scheme as follows:

Basic blood transfusion diagram.

In addition, modern medicine has been studying the relationship between blood type and certain types of diseases.

Kevin Kain from the University of Toronto and colleagues studied why O-type people are less likely to get malaria than others. He showed that immune cells are more likely to recognize red blood cells if they are O erythrocytes.

In addition, we can explain why blood groups exist for millions of years. The pathogen that has chosen common blood groups will grow well thanks to the abundance of hosts, but will gradually destroy the host. Meanwhile, more rare blood groups with protective mechanisms should gradually become dominant and survive over time.

Finding blood groups helps us better understand the mechanism of blood transfusion.

In short, finding a blood group is a breakthrough discovery in world medicine. It helps us better understand the mechanism of blood transfusion , and thus opens new research directions, all for the purpose of improving human health.