DangoDale

How do you feel about the practice of selling organs like in Iran?

Just a quick note: I feel like an idiot phrasing my last paragraph like that. I meant to marvel at your lived experiences, but it came out all wrong! I definitely get a little too casual on the internet. I hope you'll forgive that phrasing!

Thank you again for doing this AMA. I'm loving reading your answers and will be seeing if i can't get a copy of your book. I love reading about the history of medicine.

Did blood transfusions help accept organ transplants as a possibility?

Not OP, but one of the funniest (not so funny at the time) things about old medicine was that they bled your ass for everything. Cold? They'll bleed ya. Head trauma? Bring out the leeches. Severe blood loss? Not enough blood loss, was the mantra.

Another funny thing was that some of the earliest transfusion experiments included injecting people with milk. Because they thought that was what your blood had. Like they'd grab blood and notice some white stuff (your white cells), and so they thought, okay let's try putting some more in. So they'd inject your ass with milk and people would get the crazy eyes and shit like that. Eventually phased out because saline was introduced.

The cherry on top was that there wasn't any sort of ethics board. You'd just have to find someone poor and crazy enough and off to the races they went.

This doc is old as fuck. i'd love to hear more about the stupid shit we used to do. i'd love to hear answers to your questions