[When blood and meat were drugs]

When one look at pharmaceutical advertising and trademarks at the beginning of the 20th century, several of them emphasize the interest of pharmaceutical specialties based on animal blood. This fashion goes back to Fuster's work in 1865 on tuberculosis, but also to Deschiens, Catillon, Adrian and mainly Richet. This interest for blood derivatives in therapy will progressively disappear after teh Second World war and with antibiotic discovery. Consequently, it has been a century of glory for these specialties that seem strange today in the context of HIV and ESB issues. But some of these research will be the basis for modern works on erythropoetin (the famous EPO).