AEGiS-BKREV: Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce

(BKREV) Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce

Alfred A. Knopf, 201 E. 50th St., New York, NY 10022. 441p., illus., bibliog., index. ISBN 0-679-41875-X. $27.50.
Douglas Starr. 1998.

Blood, the lifeline of everyone, has had a long history of discovery and use. It has been abused, used, sold, and tainted. Today, there have been numerous legal suits over the use of tainted blood, tainted with the HIV virus. The most recent has been the scandal in France. There have been many legal suits that involve hemophilia patients who were given tainted blood. Since blood is the one liquid that keeps us alive, we need to be aware that the struggle over the control of blood has been going on for centuries. Blood could be called the world's most precious natural resource and compared to crude oil which sells for $13.00 a barrel, whole blood would sell for $20,000 a barrel. In its processed state, oil would sell for $42 a barrel and blood for $67,000 a barrel. So, it is no wonder that we should be concerned when we hear that there is a shortage of blood.

The first part of the book discusses the historical aspects of blood in "Blood Magic" where blood was a magical substance that was part of the human anatomy. In the next section, "Blood Wars," one sees the transformation of blood from a scientific curiosity to a strategic material. It was during this time that scientists "began to master the resource, learning the techniques of mass collections, storage, and the separation of plasma." All of this was just in time for World War II when blood was that precious commodity that saved so many lives. The last section, "Blood Money," delves into the global industry of blood. A small group of drug companies dominated the plasma business by setting up "plasma mills" in "America's skid rows, buying from the residents, who often included drug addicts and indigents" and, later, importing plasma from the Third World. In the 1970s blood-related hepatitis killed tens of thousands of hemophiliacs and transfusion recipients. The hepatitis problem was solved but then HIV raised its ugly head. This book looks at all of these topics from the earliest magical times to the present. It "is the story of blood--the chronicle of a resource, the researchers who have studied it, the businessmen who have traded it, the doctors who have prescribed it, and the lay people whose lives it so dramatically affected." It is a must have book for all academic and medical libraries.

Keywords: Blood Banks

Copyright (c) 1999 - Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago. All materials in the journal are subject to copyright by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, redistribution, or translation, address requests to H. Robert Malinowsky, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, PO Box 8198, Chicago, IL 60680 or electronically to hrm@uic.edu.
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Copyright © 1999 - The University of Illinois at Chicago. All materials in the journal are subject to copyright by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, redistribution, or translation, address requests to H. Robert Malinowsky, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, PO Box 8198, Chicago, IL 60680 or electronically to hrm@uic.edu.

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