First Artificial Blood Transfusion in the United States

About the history of the first artificial blood transfusion in the United States.

UNUSUAL FIRSTS

THE FIRST ARTIFICIAL BLOOD TRANSFUSION IN THE U.S.

A spokesman for the University of Minnesota Hospital announced on Nov. 20, 1979, that one of its doctors, Dr. Robert Anderson, had been the first in the country to give a patient a transfusion of artificial blood. The patient suffered a severe loss of blood after having undergone surgery for vascular disease. As a Jehovah's Witness, he refused on religious grounds to receive a transfusion of real blood, so the doctor injected a milky blood substitute called Fluosol, which was developed and tested in Japan.