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HEMO
january/february/march 2014
panorama
Hemotherapy in
Brazil - a journey
through history
The beginning of this specialty in the country and
the major advances that have occurred so far
By Tatiana Piva
Y
ou can make a direct
association between the
panorama of hemotherapy
(blood therapy) in Brazil and
a drive through the country. It is a virtuous,
beautiful, interesting way, however, as in
our federal and state highways, is not an
easy task to accomplish. We’re talking
about a road full of curves, ascents and
barriers, which, in the end, thankfully,
make it worth the outcome. To tell where
we are today is even more important to
remember the evolution from the specialty
first steps and observe that the long awaited
excellence in care is already a reality in
several parts of the world and in Brazil.
But of course our context ends up being
very peculiar, after all we have specific
characteristics. Yet we are gradually being
inserted between the countries that stand
out when it comes to hemotherapy.
Blood transfusion is divided into two
major historical periods: an empirical,
which goes up to 1900, and a scientific from
1900 on. In the “Pre-scientific” age, the
first academic report about hemotherapy
in Brazil, in 1879, was a PhD thesis that
discussed if the best blood transfusion
would be made from animals to humans
or among humans. In the “scientific age”
after the discovery of blood groups by
Karl Landsteiner in 1900, transfusions
were performed by surgeons as Carrel,
Crille and De Bakey. In Brazil, Brandão
Filho and Armando Aguinaga pioneered
the practice in Rio de Janeiro (RJ).
Gradually transfusion specialty services
began to emerge, with several services
already available in Brazil before 1940. At
that time, the habit of paying blood donors
was completely normal. Also at that time,
particularly in the states of Rio de Janeiro
and São Paulo, the hemotherapy began to
be characterized as a medical specialty.
On December 7, 1942, at the
Instituto
Fernandes Figueira
(RJ) was opened the
first blood bank. In the following years,
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