What famous scientist discovered a process for storing blood and created the first blood bank?
The person most often credited with discovered the process for storing blood (his doctoral research project) and creating the first blood bank (the American Red Cross) is actually Charles Drew. There is, in fact, a rather well-known urban myth about him. He died from a car accident, and it’s said (untruthfully) that the discoverer of how to store blood bled to death because the hospital wouldn’t let an African-American patient in to receive a transfusion. There were actually blood banks before this… dozens, in fact. As early as 1914 some preservatives were known and various hospitals began experimenting with different ways of storing blood. There is a Leningrad Hospital which beat what is sometimes cited as the first (the Cook Hospital) by four years. But these were all small, experimental operations, nothing like the thousands of units Drew provided during WW2.
