Blood transfusions

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  • Created by: Megan
  • Created on: 14-06-13 15:39

Advantages and disadvantages of blood transfusions

Advantages

  • Landsteiner's work improved scientific understanding and influenced successful transfusions
  • Rous and Turner's work enabled blood to be stored for longer, so transfusions were possible for the first time
  • The army could call on the public to donate blood before a war or an attack, in preparation to save lives of casualties
  • People became were aware that there were different blood types which were all incompatible with other types

Disadvantages

  • Initially, the patient and donor had to be in the same place because blood would clot quickly, so could not be stored
  • Blood typing was little help to surgery at first because doctors needed a way to stop blood clotting before blood transfusions were possible

Evaluation

Although it took a while to make blood transfusions possible, the solution to blood loss saved many lives, and proved vital in the fisrt world war.

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