The Pattern of Research About Blood Groups

The most important discoveries in blood group research in the first half of the twentieth century are an example of the large-scale, worldwide scientific research that made the twentieth century different from previous periods in the history of science. By 1940 research on the distribution of the blood groups alone produced over 1000 articles. Several features of that research in the 1920s and 1930s were typical of most other scientific work, including the “democratization” of research, as laboratories and scientists from around the world became part of the scientific enterprise that previously had been limited to a very small circle. This research was also “international” in the sense of transcending national boundaries. Authors were very conscious of the importance of their cumulative effort, and there was significant publication in foreign journals. This makes all the more interesting the numerous differences in how research was conducted in the various countries: both the timing and extent as well as interest in links of blood groups to different potentially inherited human traits and conditions.