World War I provided testing grounds for novel blood-transfusion techniques.
In a dramatic and widely publicized feat in 1908, French surgeon Alexis Carrel, working at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City, demonstrated the relatively new technique of direct blood transfusion. To save a baby’s life, he connected the artery of a surgeon’s arm with a vein in the leg of the surgeon’s infant daughter. The method, which he and others had been developing for the past couple of years, circumvented the problem of coagulation that had long challenged blood transfusion efforts. As soon as blood is exposed to air, it begins to coagulate; directly connecting the vessels of donor and recipient avoided contact with air altogether.
“Blood could actually flow from individual to individual and really bring people back from death itself,” says Susan Lederer, a professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.