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family photos...


Marvel

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^ Nice... Masonaries are cool!

 

what a great idea for a OT thread...

 

My Great Grand Father Harry Brown. His company did the lighting and electrical engineering for many holly wood movies around the teens and twenties... most notably The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

 

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This one is a puzzle. I have a book of photos, with a few of my maternal great grandfather. There is also a clipping from a newspaper in it and photos from the same family but I can't find a connection with my family yet. I think this is from Safford AL, probably during WWI. Looks like a blood drive being held at someone's home.

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Interesting picture.

 

The 20s and 30s were the first years the American Red Cross started collecting blood by voluntary donation for storage. Sodium Citrate was discovered to prolong the life of collected blood in the late teens. I'm thinking that photo is mid 20s or so. Just a few years after the discovery of blood types and still 20 years before Rh blood group was discovered.

 

A blood transfusion during this time was wrought with all kinds of danger and you didn't want a transfusion unless it was your last chance to live. Whatever blood born problems your donor had you likely acquired. With WWII came the idea that blood transfusions were really "life saving" procedures. Even during WWII these were whole blood transfusions which are rarely used today, in the US anyway.

 

My mom struggled for 7 years with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Many blood transfusions, platelet transfusions, etc. kept her going for a while. At the end of it all though, I learned you cannot live on the blood of others (donors). Once you get sick enough that you no longer produce healthy blood cells its just a matter of time. It is interesting to me how mankind has learned so much about blood/medicine since the photo above, yet we still seem to have so much to learn. 

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I'm thinking that photo is mid 20s or so. Just a few years after the discovery of blood types and still 20 years before Rh blood group was discovered.
I hadn't thought enough about the time blood drives were initiated. You are probably correct about the '20s.

 

Bruce

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