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Author: Douglas Starr
ISBN : B008WONZPI
New from $11.84
Format: PDF
Direct download links available Free Download Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link Essence and emblem of life--feared, revered, mythologized, and used in magic and medicine from earliest times--human blood is now the center of a huge, secretive, and often dangerous worldwide commerce. It is a commerce whose impact upon humanity rivals that of any other business--millions of lives have been saved by blood and its various derivatives, and tens of thousands of lives have been lost. Douglas Starr tells how this came to be, in a sweeping history that ranges through the centuries.
With the dawn of science, blood came to be seen as a component of human anatomy, capable of being isolated, studied, used. Starr describes the first documented transfusion: In the seventeenth century, one of Louis XIV's court physicians transfers the blood of a calf into a madman to "cure" him. At the turn of the twentieth century a young researcher in Vienna identifies the basic blood groups, taking the first step toward successful transfusion. Then a New York doctor finds a way to stop blood from clotting, thereby making all transfusion possible.
In the 1930s, a Russian physician, in grisly improvisation, successfully uses cadaver blood to help living patients--and realizes that blood can be stored. The first blood bank is soon operating in Chicago.
During World War II, researchers, driven by battlefield needs, break down blood into usable components that are more easily stored and transported. This "fractionation" process--accomplished by a Harvard team--produces a host of pharmaceuticals, setting the stage for the global marketplace to come. Plasma, precisely because it can be made into long-lasting drugs, is shipped and traded for profit; today it is a $5 billion business.
The author recounts the tragic spread of AIDS through the distribution of contaminated blood products, and describes why and how related scandals have erupted around the world. Finally, he looks at the latest attempts to make artificial blood.
Douglas Starr has written a groundbreaking book that tackles a subject of universal and urgent importance and explores the perils and promises that lie ahead.Direct download links available for Free Download Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 1529 KB
- Print Length: 464 pages
- Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (September 5, 2012)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B008WONZPI
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #334,679 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #22
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Internal Medicine > Hematology
- #22
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Internal Medicine > Hematology
Free Download Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce
I've worked in the blood industry for almost 30 years, in the front trenches (hospital blood banks/transfusion services) and in the rear support areas (community blood centers, research institutions, and pharmaceutical/medical device manufacturers) in technical, sales, marketing and production management positions. For me, Starr's admirable volume works best during the first half, when the historical evolution of blood and blood product therapy from the 17th century up to the end of World War II is described. After that, it becomes repetitive of the excellent work previously authored by Randy Shilts, "And the Band Played On". The hepatitis and AIDS crises of the late 20th century have certainly revealed the various international and national elements of the blood industry to be conservative, cantankerous, shortsighted, jingoistic, sometimes lacking in social conscience, occasionally unethical, often self-serving to the point of greed, and with leaders of monumental egos. Sounds like any other human group endeavor to me. What else is new? Maybe an industry that provides wire clothes hangers might be more idealistic, but I doubt it. The bulk of the later chapters is "bad news". But then, to the author, who is a former newspaper reporter, the only news worth telling would naturally be bad news.In any case, Starr has clearly done a mountain of research. I would highly recommend this book to anyone outside of the blood industry who wishes to understand the broad mechanics of collecting, preserving and distributing blood and blood products. I would also recommend it to a person such as myself, immersed in the day-to-day technology of getting blood to the patient, who has never been exposed to the history of the art.