Different Methods of Blood Transfusion by the Twentieth Century

By the twentieth century, there were several known apparatuses and methods of blood transfusion that were used or that were rarely used but were still remembered as important methods, such as the usage of defibrinated blood only through necessity. To summarize, there were direct and indirect methods. The direct blood transfusion with different apparatuses was progressively replaced by the indirect blood transfusion, which did not require the proximity of a blood donor and a patient. Indirect blood transfusions are the only method of blood transfusion used in today’s modern world. In the literature, we can find different statements on what the difference was between direct and indirect blood transfusion. The statements about the differences between them were sometimes confusing. Indirect blood transfusion is sometimes referred to as direct or otherwise. The description varies depending on whether it is a person-to-person blood transfusion or a blood transfusion with an apparatus between the blood donor and the patient. In transfusion medicine, venipuncture (puncture of the vein) and venesection (cutting the vein) were two different methods used for drawing blood from the blood donor. Today, only venipuncture is used for collecting blood from a blood donor.