[History of blood transfusion]

The idea of transfusing blood of an animal to another or from an animal to a man or from one to another man, is very ancient. When the doctrine of blood circulation was diffused, in the first third of the XVII century, this idea was give fresh impetus. On began also to inject some substance into the blood, wich will permit to introduce medicaments intravenously. It is worthy to be remembered that in the same year when the Harveyan monography De motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus was published (1628), the Paduan professor Giovanni Colle suggested a procedure for blood transfusions. Later (1645) the Tuscan physician Francesco Folli showed another procedure, in the presence of the great duke of Toscana, Ferdinando II de Medici. On his side, the surgeon Giovanni Guglielmo Riva realized blood transfusions from animals to men in 1668. Transfusions were already carried out by Richard Lower in London and by Jean-Baptiste Denis in Paris. During the XVIII century, blood transfusions were not effectuated because of some failure occurred in the formed century and of the proscription by civil and religious authorities. Nevertheless these were renewed during the first third of the XIX century in England as well as in the continental Europe. In Mexico the first blood transfusion was effectuated in 1845 by the physician Matias D. Beistegui. At the time persisted the problem of blood coagulation, which could be resolved during the XX century in North America (Crile, 1906) as well as in Latin America (Luis Agote, 1914). Moreover the blood groups were described in 1900 by the Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner, who identified later the Rh factor. It seems completely justified the inscription shining on the façade of the National Archive in Washington: "The past is only prologue".