Boel Berner Strange Blood Medical Humanities | Volume 5 Boel Berner is a sociologist, historian, and professor emerita at Linköping Uni- versity in Sweden. In her research she investigates the character and power of ex- pertise, historically and today. She has studied education and work, the gendered nature of technical knowledge, household modernization, and issues of risk. Her current work is oriented towards the history of medicine. It focuses, besides ques- tions of blood donation and transfusion, on the politics of blood group analysis in the interwar years. Boel Berner Strange Blood The Rise and Fall of Lamb Blood Transfusion in 19th Century Medicine and Beyond Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National- bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http:// dnb.d-nb.de This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 (BY- ND) license, which means that the text may be shared and redistributed, provided credit is given to the author, but may not be remixed, transformed or build upon. 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Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Cover illustration: Francisco de Zurbarán, Agnus Dei (1635-1640), © Museo Nacio- nal del Prado Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-5163-8 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-5163-2 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839451632 Printed on permanent acid-free text paper. Contents Prologue ........................................................................... 9 Introduction: ‘The mighty influence of strange blood’ .............................. 11 PART I: SETTING THE SCENE 1. Using the blood of others ........................................................ 17 The beginnings ............................................................................................. 18 The return.................................................................................................... 21 Direct or indirect transfusion? ........................................................................ 23 Gaining acceptance .......................................................................................25 The revival of lamb blood transfusion............................................................... 28 2. Ambitions and connections ..................................................... 31 The sanguine local doctor............................................................................... 31 The polemicist............................................................................................. 34 The entrepreneur ......................................................................................... 36 The context..................................................................................................40 PART II: PRACTICES 3. Blood on the battlefield ........................................................ 45 Wars, wars, wars...........................................................................................46 War-time modernization ................................................................................49 Using Roussel’s apparatus – or not? .................................................................. 51 The animal blood alternative........................................................................... 53 Saving the apparently dead ............................................................................ 55 War and medical innovation............................................................................ 58 4. Blood for the lungs .............................................................. 61 Consumption challenges.................................................................................62 The benefits of lamb blood............................................................................. 66 Performing transfusions.................................................................................67 Experiencing lamb blood transfusion.................................................................72 Getting better?..............................................................................................74 Still worth trying?..........................................................................................77 5. Asylum experiments ............................................................. 81 Pellagrous conditions.................................................................................... 82 Testing transfusion....................................................................................... 86 Transfusion and the Risorgimento of Italian science............................................ 88 First experiences ..........................................................................................90 A transfusion competition...............................................................................95 The Brescia experiment..................................................................................96 Understanding improvement............................................................................99 Assessing experiments.................................................................................. 101 PART III: CONTROVERSY 6. Proofs and refutations......................................................... 105 Bedside medicine........................................................................................ 108 Hospital medicine..........................................................................................111 Laboratory medicine..................................................................................... 114 Laboratory experiments contested .................................................................. 117 Clinical experience contested .........................................................................120 The problem with statistics ............................................................................122 7. Transgressions .................................................................127 Using animals............................................................................................. 128 Crossing boundaries .................................................................................... 133 Accepting transgression ............................................................................... 134 Was it worth it?............................................................................................137 Overstepping boundaries .............................................................................. 139 PART IV: THE FALL 8. Winding up .................................................................... 145 The condemnation........................................................................................147 Understanding blood.................................................................................... 148 Lessons learnt ............................................................................................. 151 Human trajectories...................................................................................... 153 No more blood on the battlefield?....................................................................156 Epilogue: The return.............................................................. 159 The advent of serotherapy ............................................................................ 160 Hasse vindicated? ........................................................................................162 French interventions.....................................................................................164 Notes..............................................................................167 Sources and Literature ........................................................... 183 Archives.................................................................................................... 183 Websites.................................................................................................... 183 Literature .................................................................................................. 183 Acknowledgements .............................................................. 203 Index of Places................................................................... 205 Index of Names................................................................... 209 Prologue It is late May 1873, springtime in the Harz Mountains in northern Germany. Flowers are in bloom, birds are singing, but in the home of Heinrich Krüger, a cattle dealer