What Were The First Blood Tests Used For?

A small sample of blood can be used to check for a wide range of health markets, as well as common markers of some diseases, DNA profiling and as part of drug testing regimes.

There are a lot of blood tests we can provide at our pharmacy and we can even set up specific custom tests based on specific biomarkers you may want to check for.

Our blood can reveal a lot about us, and there is a growing number of tests that will allow for earlier and more accurate diagnoses of diseases and conditions that will allow them to be treated sooner, as well as provide a broader picture of overall health.

Whilst blood had been analysed in laboratories for as long as the microscope has been in use, the first systematic blood tests made blood transfusions significantly safer in the same way anaesthesia and antiseptics made surgery safer.

The First Blood Tests

The Austrian biologist Karl Landsteiner is amongst the most important medical professionals in the modern history of medicine, contributing to two groundbreaking discoveries that helped save countless lives.

He was part of a team with Erwin Popper that isolated the poliovirus, a major first step towards the development of the polio vaccine in the 1950s that has since nearly wiped out the disease entirely.

As well as this, in 1901 he successfully identified that there are four separate blood groups which react differently to various antibodies. It also allowed him to identify and determine how different blood types react to each other, and why some blood cells are destroyed whilst others are not.

Reliable Blood Transfusions

Blood transfusions had been attempted since the 17th century, but up until Mr Landsteiner’s discovery, doctors were not able to predict or explain why some transfusions would be effective whilst others were rejected.

Whilst scientists already knew that the composition of blood was different in different people, Mr Landsteiner was able to explain why and provide early, rudimentary and regular blood testing.

The first successful blood transfusion using Mr Landsteiner’s testing method was performed at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital in 1907, and soon turned transfusions into a routine procedure.

He would continue his research into other blood factors, and later discover the Rhesus (Rh) system, which would be the final part of the ABO positive/negative blood typing system most commonly used today.

These achievements would win Mr Landsteiner the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1930, such were their importance to the history of modern medicine.

How Can You Find Out Your Blood Type?

Somewhat unusually, blood type is not a routine test offered by most GPs, so people who are interested in their blood type either need to request a test from our pharmacy or donate blood in order to find out their blood type.

If you need surgery or a blood transfusion, you will also get a blood type test to ensure that you are given blood or plasma that matches your blood type and therefore will not be rejected by your immune system.