Karl Landsteiner, (June 14, 1868 – June 26, 1943), was an Austrian and American biologist and physician. You might not know his name, but he saved millions of lives including yours by discovering the existence of blood types.
In the XIX century, physicians attributed the agglutination that regularly followed blood transfusions to underlying disease in the donor blood. But in 1901, Landsteiner discovered the existence of the A, B, and O blood types and that different people’s blood had different characteristics.
Karl Landsteiner received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his outstanding work on the blood groups.Thanks to him we can be sure that transfusions are much safer now comparing to how it was when no one knew that there were four different types of blood.
Landsteiner continued to make significant contributions to the progress of medicine long after his discovery of blood groups. He is considered to be the father of Hematology, Immunology, Polio research, and Allergy research.
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Let’s thank all doctors and nurses for helping us lead longer and healthier lives!
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