Description

pp.291 this book stretches from ancient rome to modern day laboratories. “Hayes uses his own encounters with blood’s ability to save and destroy lives as a launching point for anecdotes in the larger story of blood. His personal history runs like a river through this book, picking up the flotsam and jetsam of blood lore. He launches into an account of the discovery of blood’s components and its function in the body, and meanders through cultural perceptions of blood, from the sacred (the Eucharist) to the profane (Dracula). Hayes ranges far beyond red and white blood cells, platelets and plasma, taking readers inside a modern blood bank and to the bedside of a woman with hemophilia; his keen perceptions show how the ancient view of blood as the essence of a person’s soul still pervades our modern vocabulary and views on the vital fluid. His sometimes irreverent commentary on misconceptions about blood doesn’t shy away from the gruesome, particularly a cringe-inducing description of early blood transfusion techniques.”