History
The two most significant blood group systems were discovered by Karl Landsteiner during early experiments with blood transfusion: the ABO group in 1901 and in co-operation with Alexander S. Wiener the Rhesus group in 1937. Development of the Coombs test in 1945, the advent of transfusion medicine, and the understanding of ABO hemolytic disease of the newborn led to discovery of more blood groups, and now 30 human blood group systems are recognized by the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT), and across the 30 blood groups, over 600 different blood group antigens have been found; many of these are very rare or are mainly found in certain ethnic groups. Blood types have been used in forensic science and were formerly used to demonstrate impossibility of paternity (e.g., a type AB man cannot be the father of a type O infant), but both of these uses are being replaced by genetic fingerprinting, which provides greater certainty.
Read more about this topic: Blood Type
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)