by Rose George
8. E. M. Rose, The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of Blood Libel in Medieval Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
9. “Hamas Revives Passover Blood Libel,” Times of Israel, November 30, 2015.
10. Frank Capra, Hemo the Magnificent, 1957, www.youtube.com/watch?v=08QDu2pGtkc, 2.40–3.39.
11. Proceedings of the International Seminar, Royal College of Pathologists, November 13, 1998; “Altruism: Is It Alive and Well?,” Transfusion Medicine 9, no. 4 (1999): 358.
12. The shape of a red blood cell is a biconcave disc with a flattened center. In other words, both faces of the disc have shallow bowl-like indentations. www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/.
13. Matthew J. Loe and William D. Edwards, “A Light-Hearted Look at a Lion-Hearted Organ (or, a Perspective from Three Standard Deviations Beyond the Norm), Part 1 (of Two Parts),” Cardiovascular Pathology. 13, no. 5 (2004): 282–92.
14. “Blut ist ein ganz besondrer Saft,” in Faust, Kapitel 7, http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-3664/7.
15. P. H. B. Bolton-Maggs, ed., Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) Steering Group, “The 2016 Annual SHOT Report,” July 2017, https://www.shotuk.org/wp-content/uploads/SHOT-Report-2016_web_7th-July.pdf.
16. 2016 Global Status Report on Blood Supply and Availability (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2017), 31.
17. Table of Blood Group Systems, International Society of Blood Transfusion, http://www.isbtweb.org/working-parties/red-cell-immunogenetics-and-blood-group-terminology/.
18. “Karl Landsteiner—Biographical,” www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1930/landsteiner-bio.html. There is a short silent video of Landsteiner after he had arrived in Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremony in 1930, in which he looks no less severe than in still images. www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1099.
19. Carl Zimmer, “Why Do We Have Blood Types?,” Mosaic, July 14, 2014.
20. Jason B. Harris and Regina C. LaRocque, “Cholera and ABO Blood Group: Understanding an Ancient Association,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 95, no. 2 (2016): 263–64.
21. F. Matthew Kuhlmann, Srikanth Santhanam, Pardeep Kumar, et al., “Blood Group O-Dependent Cellular Responses to Cholera Toxin: Parallel Clinical and Epidemiological Links to Severe Cholera,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 95, no. 2 (2016): 440–43.
22. Erdal Benli, Abdullah Çırakoğlu, Ercan Öğreden, et al., “Are Erectile Functions Affected by ABO Blood Group?,” Archivio Italiano di Urologia e Andrologia 88, no. 4 (2016): 270–73.
23. For an exhaustive examination of Nazis and blood, see chapter 5 of Douglas Starr, Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce (New York: Perennial, 2002), 72.
24. Ruth Evans, “Japan and Blood Types: Does It Determine Personality?,” BBC News, November 5, 2012, www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20170787 (accessed February 10, 2017).
25. Erica Angyal’s books on health and beauty by blood type, such as Bijo no Ketsuekigata Book (“Beautiful Women’s Blood Type”) and Bijo no Ketsuekigata-bestu Obento Book (“Beautiful Women’s Lunch Box by Each Blood Type”), include type-specific diet and exercise tips. Type As should eat rice and grains, fruits and vegetables, as they descended from agricultural tribes. They’re not good with dairy. Type Bs need a lot of protein or they tire easily. Noodles make Bs fat. ABs aren’t as good at digesting meat as As: they should stick to soy beans. Yoga is good for all types: Bs should play golf, and ABs should do aerobics “to let stress out.” “The Importance of Blood Type in Japanese Culture,” Japan Today, January 20, 2102, https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/the-importance-of-blood-type-in-japanese-culture (accessed February 10, 2017).
26. Evans, “Japan and Blood Types: Does It Determine Personality?”
27. Elizabeth K. Wolf and Anne E. Laumann, “The Use of Blood-Type Tattoos During the Cold War,” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 58, no. 3 (2008): 473.
28. “Physicians from the Atomic Energy Commission, the New York State Medical Board, and the Chicago Medical Society called for mass tattooing of blood types either on the wrist or under the arm. The underarm area was chosen for the tattoo mark rather than the arms or legs, Chicago physician Andrew C. Ivy explained to a reporter from the Chicago Tribune, because arms and legs ‘might be blown off by the atomic explosion.’” Susan E. Lederer, “Bloodlines: Blood Types, Identity, and Association in Twentieth-Century America,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19, no. S1 (2013): S118–29.
29. Wolf and Laumann, “The Use of Blood-Type Tattoos During the Cold War,” 472.
30. Our View, Logan City (UT) Herald Journal, March 12, 1999.
31. Cells die and renew at different rates. Some—in the lens and heart—stay constant. But seven years for all cells to renew is roughly true. Adam Cole, “Does Your Body Really Refresh Itself Every Seven Years?” NPR, June 28, 2016, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/28/483732115/how-old-is-your-body-really (accessed October 10, 2017).
32. Robert S. Franco, “Measurement of Red Cell Lifespan and Aging,” Transfusion Medicine Hemotherapy 39, no. 5 (2012): 302–7.
33. George Acton, Physical Reflections upon a Letter Written by J. Denis, Professor of Philosophy and Mathematicks, to Monsieur de Montmor, Counsellor to the French King, and Master of Requests Concerning a New Way of Curing Sundry Diseases by Transfusion of Blood (London: Printed by T. R. for J. Martyn, at the Bell without Temple Barr, 1668).
34. Statement of Bernice Steinhardt, Director Health Services Quality and Public Health Issues, Health, Education and Human Services Division, to the Subcommittee on Human Resources (Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office), 1997, 3, http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/he97143t.pdf (accessed May 2018).
35. The plan was for twelve pairs of pigeons to carry blood on their backs in a special container. “A taxi takes on average 12 minutes to arrive at Devonport hospital,” said Hilary Sanders, whose idea it was, “and another 10 minutes to complete the journey. A pigeon would cover the two-and-a-half miles in less than five minutes.” A hospital worker reported seeing only one pigeon take off with a sample. It was never seen again. Sarah Waddington, “Plymouth’s Crazy Idea to Fly Blood Samples Between Hospitals—by Pigeon,” Plymouth Herald, February 10, 2018.
36. Editorial, “Improving Blood Safety Worldwide,” Lancet 370, no. 9585 (2007): 361.
37. Kara W. Swanson, Banking on the Body: The Market in Blood, Milk, and Sperm in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 57.
38. A recent comprehensive report by the RAND corporation into the US blood supply called it “complex” but also “robust.” Harvey Klein and colleagues think differently. The financial bullying might of huge hospital conglomerates, they wrote in 2017, is forcing blood collection centers to lower their prices to unsustainable levels. There is fierce competition and the reduction of margins to the point where research is being cut. Andrew W. Mulcahy, Kandice A. Kapinos, Brian Briscombe, et al., Toward a Sustainable Blood Supply in the United States: An Analysis of the Current System and Alternatives for the Future (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1575.html; Harvey G. Klein, J. Chris Hrouda, and Jay S. Epstein, “Crisis in the Sustainability of the U.S. Blood System,” New England Journal of Medicine 377, no. 15 (2017): 1485–88.
39. Sadaguru Pandit, “10 Million Indians Made to Donate Blood Reveals NACO Data,” Hindustan Times, July 12, 2017.
40. Jacob Copeman, Veins of Devotion: Blood Donation and Religious Experience in North India (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), loc. 1685, Kindle.
41. Jacob Copeman, “Religion, Risk and Excess in the Indian Blood Donation Encounter,” i
n Giving Blood: The Institutional Making of Altruism, ed. Johanne Charbonneau and André Smith (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 130.
42. Ibid., 131.
43. Indian blood banks were given two years to comply. Sanjay Kumar, “Indian Supreme Court Demands Cleaner Blood Supply,” Lancet 347, no. 8994 (1996): 114.
44. Sunil Raman, “Illicit India ‘Blood Farm’ Raided,” BBC News, March 18, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7302649.stm (accessed October 3, 2010).
45. Rohit Singh, “Blood Racket: Arif, from Zardozi Artisan to Racketeer,” Hindustan Times, June 7, 2017.
46. Nikhil M. Babu, “Inside India’s Blood Black Market,” Business Standard (India), December 24, 2016, www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/inside-india-s-blood-black-market-116122400708_1.html (accessed October 3, 2010).
47. Shuriah Niazi, “Weather-Weary Indian Farmers Resort to New Cash Crop—Blood,” Reuters, February 17, 2016.
48. Vidya Krishnan, “Bad Blood: 2,234 Get HIV After Transfusion,” Hindu (New Delhi, India), May 31, 2016.
49. India’s National AIDS Control Organization, in response to right to information (RTI) requests, told reporters that “blood transfusion accounts for less than one per cent of total HIV infection.”
50. HIV rates transmitted by transfusion range from 0.001 percent in high-income countries to just over 1 percent in low-income countries. “Blood Safety and Availability,” World Health Organization, Fact Sheet, June 2017, www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs279/en/ (accessed June 4, 2018).
51. US Food and Drug Administration, “CPG Sec. 230.150 Blood Donor Classification Statement, Paid or Volunteer Donor,” 2002, revised 2011, available at https://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-public/@fdagov-afda-ice/documents/webcontent/ucm122798.pdf (accessed June 2018).
52. Melissa Lafsky, How Much for That Pint of Blood?, Freakonomics.com, blog, June 4, 2007, http://freakonomics.com/2007/06/04/how-much-for-that-pint-of-blood/ (accessed October 3, 2017).
53. Campbell Robertson, “For Offenders Who Can’t Pay, It’s a Pint of Blood or Jail Time,” New York Times, October 19, 2015.
54. Susan E. Lederer, Flesh and Blood: Organ Transplantation and Blood Transfusion in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 93.
55. Kieran Healy, Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 73.
56. “Blood Connects Us All—Blood Donation Text Message Service in Sweden,” World Health Organization, Health Topics, June 14, 2016, www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Health-systems/blood-safety/news/news/2016/06/blood-connects-us-all-blood-donation-text-message-service-in-sweden (accessed October 3, 2017).
57. Interview with Mike Stredder.
58. Lederer, Flesh and Blood, 117.
59. William H. Schneider, “Blood Transfusion Between the Wars,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 58, no. 2 (2003): 187–224.
60. Lederer, Flesh and Blood, 135.
61. Interview with Mike Stredder.
62. 2016 Global Status Report on Blood Safety and Availability (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2017), 6.
TWO: THAT MOST SINGULAR AND VALUABLE REPTILE
1. George Horn, An Entire New Treatise on Leeches, Wherein the Nature, Properties and Use of That Most Singular and Valuable Reptile, Is Most Clearly Set Forth (London: H. D. Symonds, 1798).
2. D. P. Thomas, “The Demise of Bloodletting,” Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 44, no. 1 (2014): 72.
3. Ibid., 73.
4. Audrey Davis and Toby Appel, Bloodletting Instruments in the National Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, no. 41 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979), 10.
5. Bloodletting was so popular it inspired the naming of the august medical journal the Lancet.
6. “Medicinal Leech (Hirudo medicinalis) in the Romney Marsh Natural Area,” Romney Marsh Countryside Project, www.rmcp.co.uk/MedicinalLeech.html (accessed October 4, 2010); “Mixed Fortunes for New Forest Bloodsuckers,” Forestry Commission England, news release no. 16626, October 25, 2016.
7. Robert N. Mory, David A. Mindell, and David A. Bloom, “The Leech and the Physician: Biology, Etymology, and Medical Practice with Hirudinea medicinalis,” World Journal of Surgery 24, no. 7 (2000): 878–83.
8. “Grandma Moses,” Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Department of Invertebrate Zoology, http://invertebrates.si.edu/Features/stories/haementeria.html (accessed October 4, 2017).
9. “Leech,” BBC Natural Histories, BBC Radio 4, August 8, 2016, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07m5gwr (accessed October 10, 2017).
10. Until 2007, the European medicinal leech was thought to be Hirudo medicinalis. Then the leech specialist Mark E. Siddall and colleagues discovered there were three distinct genetic types of “European medicinal leech,” and most commercially grown leeches were actually Hirudo verbana. Mark E. Siddall, Peter Trontelj, Serge Y. Utevsky, et al., “Diverse Molecular Data Demonstrate That Commercially Available Medicinal Leeches Are Not Hirudo medicinalis,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274, no. 1617 (2007): 1481.
11. Haycraft experimented on dogs to prove the anticoagulant power of leech saliva, and that it continued long after the leech had detached. Apart from making the dogs “a bit sad,” the leech saliva had no lasting effects. Hirudin was isolated by a German team and the patent licensed to Merck in 1905, which sold it as a drug. Robert G. W. Kirk and Neil Pemberton, Leech (London: Reaktion Books, 2013), 161.
12. J. Harsfalvi, J. M. Stassen, M. F. Hoylaerts, et al., “Calin from Hirudo medicinalis, an Inhibitor of von Willebrand Factor Binding to Collagen Under Static and Flow Conditions,” Blood 85, no. 3 (1995): 705–11.
13. The calin binds to collagen, which would normally bind to platelets, aiding them to aggregate and form a clot. Biopharm researchers have likened this to “collagen-coating paint.” Roy T. Sawyer, “Novel Cardiovascular Drugs from Bloodsucking Animals,” University of Wales Science and Technology Review, no. 8 (1991): 3–12. Also Harsfalvi et al., “Calin from Hirudo medicinalis, an Inhibitor of von Willebrand Factor Binding to Collagen Under Static and Flow Conditions.”
14. Results taken from Espacenet patent database, https://worldwide.espacenet.com/searchResults?submitted=true&locale=en_EP&DB=EPODOC&ST=advanced&TI=&AB=&PN=&AP=&PR=&PD=&PA=Biopharm&IN=Sawyer&CPC=&IC=&Submit=Search (accessed October 4, 2010).
15. The Old English laece meant “worm” and came from Middle Dutch. The other Old English laece came from Old Frisian (letza), Old Saxon (laki), and Old High German (lakki), according to a comprehensive history of the leech in the World Journal of Surgery, and meant a physician. Mory et al., “The Leech and the Physician: Biology, Etymology, and Medical Practice with Hirudinea medicinalis.”
16. Roy T. Sawyer, “Scientific Rationale Behind the Medical Use of Leeches,” chapter available on Researchgate, www.researchgate.net/profile/Roy_Sawyer/.
17. There may be no such poet, or several poets. Whoever he was, he does not always inspire praise. “Readers who chance upon Nicander’s poetic oeuvre of nearly 1,600 lines, devoted almost entirely to snakes, spiders, and poisons and marked by an arcane style and recondite vocabulary, typically do not fall in love with their discovery. Professional classicists also sometimes run from Nicander as if from a venomous creature.” Enrico Magnelli, “Nicander,” in A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, ed. James J. Clauss and Maratine Cuypers (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2010), 211; N. Papavramidou and H. Christopoulou-Aletra, “Medicinal Use of Leeches in the Texts of Ancient Greek, Roman and Early Byzantine Writers,” Internal Medicine Journal 39,
no. 9 (2009): 624–27.
18. Kirk and Pemberton, Leech, 47.
19. Avicenna, The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna (New York: AMS Press, 1973), 501.
20. Ibid., 502.
21. Hermann Samuel Glasscheib, The March of Medicine: The Emergence and Triumph of Modern Medicine, trans. Mervyn Savill (New York: Putnam, 1964), 156.
22. There is patchy written evidence, according to medieval historian Dr. Katherine Harvey, but Gilbert the Englishman (Gilbertus Anglicus) wrote of “gonorrhoea,” a condition caused by the “flowing of man’s seed against his will,” that could be caused by “plenty of blood” and could be alleviated by letting blood. Correspondence with Dr. Harvey. Also Faye M. Getz, Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Angelicus (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 272–73.
