History of blood bank

Direct transfusion or donor artery anastamosed to recipient vein was performed by Alexis Carrel in 1908, and direct transfusion using a three way stopcock was used until World War II.

Sodium citrate as anticoagulant was discovered in 1914, It was systematically applied to battlefield needs of the World War I by an American army Dr. O.H Robertson working with a British unit. By setting up blood depots before a battle, the blood could be stored for only a few days.

During the second World War, the US military oversaw the creation of the largest chain of distribution for plasma and other blood components.

In 1940 Charles Richard Drew published ‘Banked Blood: A study in Blood Preservation.’ He then in 1941 introduced the revolutionary idea of a central depository for blood. At that time he was a director of the British Blood Plasma Project, which consisted of collecting and drying blood plasma to be used for transfusion on the battlefield.

Acid citrate dextrose solution was developed in 1943 by Loutit and Mollison, allowing storage of blood for weeks instead of days and thus facilitating the ‘banking’ of blood.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, blood banking was developing as a medical specialty area. American Associations of Blood Banks later was established on November 19, 1947 at Dallas, Texas.

In 1950, Walter and Murphy described a closed, gravity technique for whole blood preservation. They used a laminar flow phlebotomy needle, and interval donor tube and a collapsible bag of polyvinyl resin designed so that the unit could be assembled and ready for use after sterilization with steam.

This allowed the development of component therapy, with the use of refrigerator centrifuges to separate components by density and pre-collection attached satellite bags to store the prepare components.
History of blood bank