Mersin University School of Medicine Lokman Hekim Journal of History of Medicine and Folk Medicine

Abstract

Although there are many studies on the historical development of human-to-human blood transfusion in our country, it is accepted that this process started in 1921. However, the stages of blood transfusion in world history date back to the 1600s, with animal-to-human transfusions. The first successful human-to-human blood transfusion was performed in 1818. In our country, the first of these stages is presented as animal-to-human blood transfusion by Dr. Girerd's medical memoirs dated 1881. Dr. Girerd, starting on February 22, 1878, performed lamb blood transfusions on two wounded soldiers and a bleeding puerperal woman, and presented them in his memoirs. This memoir, translated from French into Turkish, is presented here.
The first wounded soldier in this article, Osman H., was treated for his wounds in Pleven and recovered with blood transfusions and surgical interventions during the long-term recovery process. However, he suddenly died on March 10. The second wounded soldier examined, Ahmet Abdullah, was treated for gunshot wounds and scurvy and underwent a recovery process by giving blood from a lamb. The patient had an arm amputation successfully performed a month later. The third case is a 22-year-old postpartum woman. She was in critical condition due to excessive bleeding after a miscarriage and was treated with ether injection and transfusion and brought back to life. The blood transfusions in the book can be considered as tissue transplants and the symptoms observed after lamb blood transfusions indicate moderate allergic-pyrogenic reactions.