Dr. James Blundell, obstetrician, became the first doctor to successfully perform a person-to-person blood transfusion in 1818. Prior to this, he was determined to find a remedy to save patients from dying of postpartum hemorrhage in childbirth. During the transfusion, Dr. Blundell extracted four ounces of blood from the patient’s husband with a syringe and quickly transfused it into the patient; he believed that a quick transfusion done with a syringe, and air removed from the syringe prior to its use, were key to a successful blood transfusion.
Images courtesy of National Library of Medicine
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The Ghastly Historian 
