Nine Pints

by Rose George

    31. Holly Tucker, Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), 22.

    32. William Harvey, English physician, in Encyclopædia Britannica, www.britannica.com/biography/William-Harvey (accessed November 7, 2017).

    33. John Aubrey, Aubrey’s “Brief Lives,” ed. Andrew Clark (London: Henry Frowde, 1898), 300.

    34. Keynes, Blood Transfusion, 3.

    35. Richard Lower, “The Method Observed in Transfusing the Bloud out of One Animal into Another,” in Royal Society (Great Britain), Philosophical Transactions (1665–1678), vol. 1 (1665–1666) (London: Royal Society of London), 353–58.

    36. H. F. Brewer et al., Blood Transfusion, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London: John Wright & Sons, 1949), 9.

    37. J. Denis, “A letter concerning a new way of curing sundry diseases by transfusion of blood, written to Monsieur de Montmor, Councellor to the French King, and Master of Requests,” Philosophical Transactions 2, no. 27 (1666): 489–504.

    38. J. Denis, “An Extract of a Letter Written by J. Denis, Doctor of Physick, and Professor of Philosophy and the Mathematicks at Paris, touching a late Cure of an Inveterate Phrensy by the Transfusion of Bloud,” Philosophical Transactions 2, no. 32 (1666): 621.

    39. “He had but 20s. for his suffering it, and is to have the same again tried upon him: the first sound man that ever had it tried on him in England.” Samuel Pepys, Diary, November 30, 1667, www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1667/11/30/ (accessed May 2018).

    40. Brewer et al., Blood Transfusion, 16.

    41. Keynes, Blood Transfusion, 9.

    42. James Blundell, The Principles and Practice of Obstetricy, as at Present Taught (London: E. Cox, 1834), 420.

    43. “Heavy Bleeding After Birth (Postpartum Haemorrhage),” Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Fact Sheet, 2013, www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/…/heavy-bleeding-after-birth.pdf (accessed January 22, 2018).

    44. Harold W. Jones and Gulden Mackmull, “The Influence of James Blundell on the Development of Blood Transfusion,” Annals of Medical History 10 (1928); 242–48.

    45. “Isidore Colas, le brave petit Breton,” Le Progrès du Morbihan, November 14, 1914, www.bannalec.fr/isidore-colas-lhistoire-de-la-transfusion-sanguine/ (accessed May 2018).

    46. Ibid.

    47. Ministry of Information, Life Blood: The Official Account of the Transfusion Services (London: HMSO, 1945), 4.

    48. Hugh J. McCurrich, Correspondence, British Medical Journal 2, no. 3960 (1936): 1110.

    49. Ministry of Information, Life Blood, 3.

    50. Ibid., 15.

    51. Blood Transfusion, directed by H. M. Nieter, Ministry of Information (UK), propaganda film, 1941.

    52. Oliver used the phrase “a pint of the best” frequently in his lectures, for example, during a cinematograph lecture titled “The Romance of Blood Transfusion,” in Horley, England, reported by the Surrey Mirror, September 30, 1932.

    53. Ritchie Calder, “They Also Served with Their Blood: Official Story of the Transfusion Service,” Lincolnshire Echo, March 22, 1945.

    54. “A full ten months earlier, in December 1920, the Camberwell Red Cross Division minutes mentioned a similar request by the hospital. In fact, ‘a number of members had already volunteered’ to give their blood.” Kim Pelis, “‘A Band of Lunatics Down Camberwell Way’: Percy Lane Oliver and Voluntary Blood Donation in Interwar Britain,” in Medicine, Madness and Social History: Essays in Honour of Roy Porter, ed. Roberta Bivins and John V. Pickstone (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 151.

    55. Medical Services, Surgery of the War, ed. Sir W. G. MacPherson et al. (London: HMSO, 1922), 111.

    56. Ibid., chapter 1, p. 1.

    57. Harvey Cushing, From a Surgeon’s Journal: 1915–1918 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1936), 259.

    58. Nicholas Whitfield, “Who Is My Stranger?: Origins of the Gift in Wartime London, 1939–45,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9, no. 51 (2013): S95–S117.

    59. Alastair Masson, Report of Proceedings, The Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, Session 1988–89 (Edinburgh: The Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, 1989), 13.

    60. Francis Hanley, The Honour Is Due: Personal Memoir of the Blood Transfusion Service—Now Known as the Great London Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service (1921–86) (Surbiton, Surrey, UK: JRP, 1998), 26.

    61. Lederer, Flesh and Blood, 82.

    62. Geoffrey Keynes, “Blood Donors,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 3327 (1924): 613–15.

    63. “Blood Transfusion Congress in Paris,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 4009 (1937): 924.

    64. Editorial, British Medical Journal 2, no. 4263 (1942): 342–43.

    65. Schneider, “Blood Transfusion Between the Wars.”

    66. Lederer, Flesh and Blood, 88.

    67. Charles V. Nemo, “I Sell Blood,” American Mercury, February 1934, 194–203.

    68. Lederer, Flesh and Blood, 84.

    69. Letter to the British Medical Journal. from J. Bagot Oldham, September 10, 1932.

    70. Tom Richards, “Percy Lane Oliver, O.B.E. (1878–1944),” article hosted on the British Blood Transfusion Society website, www.bbts.org.uk/downloads/03_article_written_by_tom_richards_in_1994.pdf/ (accessed October 18, 2017).

    71. “The Demand on the Blood Donor,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 4262, (1942): 342–43.

    72. Pelis, “‘A Band of Lunatics Down Camberwell Way.’”

    73. Frederick Walter Mills, “The London Blood Service and the Psychology of Donors,” in Brewer et al., Blood Transfusion, 353.

    74. “Problems of Blood Transfusion,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 3959 (1936): 1035.

    75. “Voluntary Blood Donors’ Association First Annual Dinner,” Nottingham Evening Post, March 5, 1934.

    76. “Voluntary Blood Donors’ Association,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 3907 (1935): 1014.

    77. Pelis, “‘A Band of Lunatics Down Camberwell Way,’” 152.

    78. Mills, “The London Blood Service and the Psychology of Donors,” 354.

    79. Editorial, British Medical Journal.

    80. “Women Blood Donors Best. A World Meeting,” Gloucester Citizen, August 7, 1937.

    81. Pelis, “‘A Band of Lunatics Down Camberwell Way,’” 156.

    82. “A Derby Man’s Diary,” Derby Daily Telegraph, October 7, 1932.

    83. Hanley, The Honour Is Due, 12.

    84. Ibid., 45.

    85. Mills, “The London Blood Service and the Psychology of Donors,” 358.

    86. W. Addison, “Blood Transfusion,” Saturday Review, February 20, 1932.

    87. Alastair H. B. Masson, History of the Blood Transfusion Service in Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh and South-East Scotland Blood Transfusion Association, 1993), 14.

    88. Hanley, The Honour Is Due, 22.

    89. “Blood Transfusion Congress in Paris,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 4009 (1937): 924.

    90. Blood Transfusion, film by the Ministry of Information, 1941.

    91. T. H. O’Brien, History of the Second World War: Civil Defence (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Longman’s, Green, 1955), 165.

    92. Ibid., 330.

    93. Peter Lewis, A People’s War (London: Thames Methuen, 1986), 8.

    94. Mollie Panter-Downes, “Letter from London,” New Yorker, September 9, 1939.

    95. Hansard, HC Deb 27 April 1937, vol 323 col.154.

    96. The 1938 Annual Report of the London Blood Transfusion Service reported that a large blood supply depot had been s
et up in a “bomb-proof” building in Cheam with a capacity of 1,000 pints of blood. It would be able to get up and running within seven days of hostilities. Apart from that, there were two pints of blood each in four London County Council hospitals for emergency maternity requirements. Masson, Report of Proceedings, 25.

    97. “There was even a glass-blower, Juan Torrero, and his assistant Salvador Fuentes, enabling the tailor-production of glass ampoules for the manipulation and storage of blood.” Linda Palfreeman, Spain Bleeds (Eastbourne, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2015), 41.

    98. Ibid., 49.

    99. Blood Transfusion, directed by H. M. Nieter.

  100. Minutes of the Emergency Blood Transfusion Service Scheme, Wellcome Library, London.

  101. “It is at the Sklifassovski [Hospital] that the method of procuring blood for transfusion popularized by Professor Yudin is in use. Within six hours of death from suicide or by street accidents, or from angina, blood is drawn off, typed, subjected to the Wasserman test, collected in jars, and preserved in ice chests.” George Sacks, “A Note on Surgery in Moscow,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 3909 (December 7, 1935): 1118.

  102. “Stored Blood in War,” Times (London), June 15, 1939.

  103. Michael Gearin-Tosh, Living Proof: A Medical Mutiny (New York: Scribner, 2010), ebook.

  104. E. T. Burke, “Blood Transfusion Service for War,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 4099 (1939): 247–48.

  105. Editorial, “Problems of Blood Transfusion,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 3959 (1936): 1035.

  106. P. L. Oliver, “A Plea for a National Blood Transfusion Conference,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 3959 (1936): 1032.

  107. Janet Vaughan interviewed by Dr. Max Blythe.

  108. Medical Research in War: Report of the Medical Research Council for the Years 1939–1945 (London: HM Stationery Office, 1947), 183.

  109. http://withlovefromgraz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/5-april-1940.html; reproduced with permission of Loraine Fergusson.

  110. Janet Vaughan, “The London Blood Supply Depots, 1939–1945,” draft chapter for Medical History of the War, Wellcome Library archives, GC/186/2.

  111. O. M. Solandt, “The Work of a London Emergency Blood Supply Depot,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 44, no. 2 (1941): 189–91.

  112. US Government Accountability Office, “Maintaining an Adequate Blood Supply Is Key to Emergency Preparedness,” September 10, 2002, pp. 7–8.

  113. Vaughan, “The London Blood Supply Depots, 1939–1945.”

  114. History module, “Remote Damage Control Resuscitation,” http://rdcr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/A-RDCR-HISTORY-MODULE-1-edited-sm.compressed.pdf (accessed October 19, 2017).

  115. “Beverley Women’s Blood Saves Lives in Europe,” Driffield Times, January 27, 1945.

  116. Ministry of Information, Life Blood.

  117. “Blood Donor Romances,” Dundee Courier, August 5, 1943.

  118. “Blood Donor Used to Pay to Be Bled,” Gloucestershire Echo, May 3, 1943.

  119. “White Feathers Sent to Girls: A Pernicious Practice,” Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser, February 6, 1942.

  120. “Blood Donor Plea,” Lancashire Evening Post, December 29, 1942.

  121. The donor who gave this reply was a married man, aged forty-seven, three children, sales representative, £20–30 ($80–120) a week, 10 donations. Richard Titmuss, The Gift Relationship (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970), 231.

  122. Harriet Proudfoot, “The Doctor,” in Janet Maria Vaughan 1899–1993: A Memorial Tribute, ed. Pauline Adams, privately published (Oxford: Somerville College, 1993), 18.

  123. Janet Vaughan interviewed by Dr. Max Blythe.

  124. Vaughan, “The London Blood Supply Depots, 1939–1945.”

  125. W. H. Ogilvie, “Surgical Advances During the War,” Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps 85, no. 6 (1945): 259–65.

  126. “The Army Blood Transfusion Service,” British Medical Journal 1, no. 4297 (1943): 610–11. The Silver Thimble Fund was founded by Miss Hope Elizabeth Hope-Clarke in 1915. Every embroiderer had a broken thimble, she reasoned, so why not melt down the broken thimbles to make medical equipment and raise funds? Between 1915 and 1919, sixty thousand thimbles, and other trinkets, had raised money to buy fifteen ambulances, five hospital motor launches, two dental surgery cars, and a disinfector. Silver Thimble Fund: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is-designation/heritage-highlights/how-did-thimbles-help-thousands-of-servicemen-in-the-first-world-war (accessed January 2018).

  127. Shipping whole blood over the Atlantic—aside from the hazards caused by enemy attacks—was a nonstarter. It would take at least five days, much of the useful shelf life of blood. Plasma was easier to transport, would survive the journey better, and, because mismatched plasma does not cause the reactions that mismatched blood does, was a much more efficient and useful donation: Starr, Blood, 93–98.

  128. Vaughan, “Jogging Along.”

  129. Medical Research in War, 183–84.

  130. Vaughan, “Jogging Along.”

  131. “South West London Blood Supply Depot (memorandum),” author unknown, Ministry of Health, 1945, https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/health/id/1896 (accessed at University of Warwick digital collection on October 24, 2017).

  132. Vaughan, “Jogging Along.”

  133. Letter from Janet Vaughan to George Minot, May 12, 1945, Wellcome Collection.

  134. Letter from Janet Vaughan to Molly Hoyle, Somerville College archives.

  135. Barbara Harvey and Louise Johnson, “Obituary: Dame Janet Vaughan,” Independent (London), January 12, 1993.

  136. “Orations Delivered at a Congregation for the Conferment of Honorary Degrees,” University of Liverpool, July 14, 1973, Somerville College archives.

  137. Sheila Callender, obituary of Janet Vaughan, Somerville College archives.

  138. Janet Adam Smith, obituary of Janet Vaughan, Somerville College archives.

  139. Barbara Harvey, “Memorial Address,” in Janet Maria Vaughan 1899–1993: A Memorial Tribute.

  140. Christian Parham (Fitzherbert), in ibid.

  141. Hanley, The Honour Is Due, 1.

  142. www.kch.nhs.uk/patientsvisitors/wards/m-o (accessed October 24, 2017).

  143. www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/oliver-percy-lane-1878-1944 (accessed October 24, 2017).

  144. James Park, “The Family,” in Janet Maria Vaughan 1899-1993: A Memorial Tribute.

  145. Harvey, “Memorial Address.”

  146. Dame Alice Prochaska, The Principal’s Diary, July 14, 2011, https://principal2010.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/departures-and-returns/ (accessed October 24, 2017).

  147. Janet Vaughan interview with Polly Toynbee.

  148. http://withlovefromgraz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/5-april-1940.html; reproduced with permission of Loraine Fergusson.

  FOUR: BLOOD BORNE

      1. South Africa’s most recent census data put the population at 391,749, www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=4286&id=328. Government statistics concluded that 44.6 percent of people live in formal dwellings.

      2. “We Can Beat Escalating Crime in Khayelitsha,” Western Cape Government, press release, www.westerncape.gov.za/khayelitsha (accessed March 23, 2018).

      3. Interview with Dr. Genine Josias of Thuthuzela.

      4. International Partnership for Microbicides, Fact Sheet, July 2017, https://www.ipmglobal.org/sites/default/files/attachments/publication/ipm_general_fact_sheet_121217.pdf. Also “Women’s Health,” World HealthOrganization, Fact Sheet no. 334, updated September 2013, www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs334/en/.

      5. How AIDS Changed Everything, UNAIDS (Geneva: United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2015), p. 436, http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/MDG6Report_en.pdf (accessed May 2010).

   
   6. Amy Maxmen, “Older Men and Young Women Drive South African HIV Epidemic,” Nature 535, no. 7612 (2016): 335.

      7. Maggie Norris and Donna Rae Siegfried, Anatomy & Physiology for Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 258.