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Introduction

The formation and dynamic processes of the development of medicine are very educational and historically difficult processes. In almost all the first human communities and early states, people appeared whose area of ​​interest concerned the structure and functioning of the human body, as well as its injuries and diseases. And, always, at all times in human history, there have been people who, more or less successfully, have studied these issues, these were the first anatomists, physiologists, and doctors. The history of medicine knows many examples of all these events and processes. The inquisitive minds of these pioneers and creators of these important medical areas, as a result of their painstaking work and tireless searches, from time to time, led to fundamental discoveries in one direction or another and/or field of the then medical science. This is directly related to the issues of opening the circulatory system in humans and other living organisms [1, 5]. Published in 1901 in the Austrian medical journal Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, an article by Karl Landsteiner, an assistant at the Department of Pathanatomy at the University of Vienna, “On the phenomena of agglutination of normal human blood,” made it possible to transform blood transfusion from a risky and sometimes fatal medical procedure into an ordinary medical procedure. A special place in matters of blood transfusion is the process of determining for each patient his own blood type and Rh factor. Based on these studies, Karl Landsteiner concluded that there are three blood groups in humans: 0, A, and B. For this discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930. In 1940, together with Alexander Salomon Wiener, he discovered another antigen in red blood cells, which he called the Rh factor since it was found in the serum of rabbits immunized with the blood of an Indian monkey, the rhesus monkey. The fourth group (AB) was discovered later by a Czech doctor and scientist, Jan Jansky [1, 4, 10-14]. Among the many researchers of the blood transfusion process, two research scientists occupy a special place - the Austrian Karl Landsteiner and the Czech Jan Jansky [1-15].

In 1907, Czech Jan Jansky named blood groups I, II, III, and IV according to the frequency with which they occurred in the population. And William Moss in Baltimore (USA) in 1910 described four blood groups in reverse order - IV III, II, and I. Moss's nomenclature was widely used, for example, in England, which led to serious problems. Ultimately, this issue was resolved once and for all in 1937 at the meeting of the International Society of Blood Transfusion in Paris, when the current terminology “AB0” was adopted, in which blood groups are called 0 (I), A (II), B (III), AB (IV). Actually, this is Landsteiner’s terminology, in which a fourth group was added, and C turned into 0 [1-4, 10-14].

Issues of blood transfusion are directly and indirectly interconnected with issues of donation, procurement, and processing of blood and its components, as well as transfusions of blood substitutes. The issues of donation, as reflected by various means of collecting, are so interesting and voluminous that more than a dozen research articles can be devoted to them. But this is another, very voluminous topic, which the author of this study plans to tackle in a number of his next research articles.

Material and Methods

When writing this research article, its author used research methods such as literary critical analysis of all available sources of information on the issue he was studying, both domestic and foreign. Also, a large search and research work was carried out to find, study, and analyze all other available authors' research articles, thematically related to the issues of blood transfusion, the history of this issue, and its heroes, presented on the Internet, both on scientific, medical sites and the Internet -pages, on the Internet. All found illustrative materials were subjected to careful selection, ordering, and systematization, with their subsequent conversion, by the author of this article, into screenshot copies, both color and black and white. In order to comply with copyright and to avoid accusations of plagiarism, the author strictly and without fail recorded the places of borrowing and Internet addresses, the illustrative and text materials used in this article, when writing it.

I would like to add that the author of this research article, starting in 1984, for 15 years, was a transfusiologist and head of a large department of blood transfusion and transfusiology at the central city clinical hospital, the city of Novaya Kakhovka, Kherson region, Ukraine. Also, starting in 1974, as a medical student and already working as a practicing doctor, he was a donor and systematically donated blood. He is an honorary donor of the USSR and Ukraine, having donated his shelter more than 500 times over all these years. He also committed by being a doner 7 times giving direct transfusions of his blood.

Results and Discussion

 In 1940, doctors Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943) and Alexander Wiener identified a serum that reacts with most types of human red blood cells and leads to their agglutination - sticking together. This serum was obtained from the red blood cells of rhesus monkeys. Therefore, the discovered protein was called the Rh factor. In 1901, he discovered the ABO blood groups (erythrocyte antigens and antibodies - agglutinins) (currently this is the AВН system). His work marked the beginning of the medical typing of blood for the purpose of transfusion. In 1929, K. Landsteiner, in collaboration with Philip Levin, discovered the blood groups of the MNP system. Two years later, his students A. Sturli and A. Dekastello discovered the fourth blood group - AB. In 1940, K. Landsteiner, together with Alexander Wiener, discovered the Rh factor and its significance both in blood transfusions and in the development of transplacental disease of newborns [1-5, 10-15].

Figure 6. Philatelic selection dedicated to Karl Landsteiner

Figure 6: Shows a small philatelic selection consisting of 26 screenshot copies dedicated to Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943) [6-10].

Figure 7. Numismatic and phaleristic collections dedicated to the memory of Karl Landsteiner

Figure 7: A small phaleristic selection is presented, in the amount of 14 copies of screenshot copies (commemorative medals and award badges and commemorative coins), dedicated to the memory of Karl Landsteiner [16-20]. All commemorative medals are presented both in obverse (front part of the medal) and in reverse (rear, back part of the medal, minted in different years and different events, from different metals.

Figure 8. Austrian banknote dedicated to Karl Landsteiner