Blood and Justice

The 17th Century Parisian doctor who made blood transfusion history… In 1667 a Parisian doctor by the name of Jean-Baptiste Denis performed an operation that had never previously been attempted – he transfused blood into another human being. This was the first attempt at a procedure that over subsequent centuries was to save the lives of thousands of people. But at the time Denis was nearly convicted of murder. The victim of Denis's experiment was a middle-aged man suffering from mad rages. Denis believed that by transfusing the blood of a calf into the man the man would assume the placid nature of the calf. The experiment appeared to work. The highly toxic blood made the…