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:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)