Editorial Reviews
Review
"…the author has told a fascinating story that is not without contemporary resonance…" (The Sunday Telegraph, 10 November 2002)
"…Dr Pete Moore’s enthralling, closely researched and very peculiar tale of Jean-Baptiste Denis’s attempts at blood transfusion…" (Daily Telegraph, 7 December 2002)
"…a hair-raising chronicle of the kinds of experiments that would never be allowed today…" (Focus, February 2003)
"…Pete Moore's entertaining book describes the people and ideas at the heart of the issue..." (Times Literary Supplement, 24 January 2003)
"…Moore writes in an informed, often amusing way about the bizarre and gory experiments that resulted in today’s medical practices…" (Good Book Guide, February 2003)
"Dr Moore not only tells a good story about past events, he also provides an illustrative case study…" (Nursing Standard, 13 August 2003)
“…Pete Moore has also created a tantalizing tale of mystique and macabre..."  (Medical History, Vol 48 No 4 October 2004)
Book Description
The 17th Century Parisian doctor who made blood transfusion history...
In 1667 a Parisian doctor by the name of Jean-Baptiste Denis performed an operation that had never previously been attempted - he transfused blood into another human being. This was the first attempt at a procedure that over subsequent centuries was to save the lives of thousands of people. But at the time Denis was nearly convicted of murder.
The victim of Denis's experiment was a middle-aged man suffering from mad rages. Denis believed that by transfusing the blood of a calf into the man the man would assume the placid nature of the calf. The experiment appeared to work. The highly toxic blood made the man in question very ill and therefore very placid. It is now believed that the man was in fact suffering from syphilis, which induced his violent behaviour. The symptoms of the syphilis would also have been relieved by the high fever that the toxic blood would have induced.
Encouraged by this apparent success, though unaware of the reasons for it, many other people attempted similar experiments.
Eventually the man died and Denis was arrested for his murder. Further investigations revealed however that the man had not in fact died from the blood transfusion (although he certainly would have done so very shortly) but from cyanide placed in his food by his wife.
Giving an insight into the first attempts at a procedure that has gone on to be developed for the benefit of humanity, and into the symbolism of blood throughout the history of medicine, Blood and Justice raises ethical issues that are as relevant today as they were at the time.
Blood and Justice
Blood and Justice,Pete Moore,John Wiley & Sons,0470848421,17th century,Biography,Blood,Blood Transfusion,Denis, Jean-Baptiste,,Ethics,France,Hematology,History,History: World,Medical,Medical / Nursing,Medical Ethics,Paris,Physicians,Transfusion,World - General,Haematology,History / World,History of medicine,c 1600 to c 1700
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