Jenny Bangham - Blood Relations: Transfusion and the Making of Human Genetics

Jenny Bangham

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK HAS BEEN AIDED BY A GRANT FROM THE BEVINGTON FUND .

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2020 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2020

Printed in the United States of America

29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-73997-7 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-74003-4 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-74017-1 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226740171.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bangham, Jenny, author.

Title: Blood relations : transfusion and the making of human genetics / Jenny Bangham.

Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020023703 | ISBN 9780226739977 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226740034 (paperback) | ISBN 9780226740171 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Blood groupsGreat BritainHistory20th century. | Blood groupsEuropeHistory20th century. | Blood groupsResearchGreat BritainHistory20th century. | Human geneticsHistory20th century. | Human geneticsResearchGreat BritainHistory20th century. | BloodTransfusionEuropeHistory20th century. | BloodTransfusionGreat BritainHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC QP98 .B36 2020 | DDC 612.1/18250941dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023703

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For my father, J. Andrew Bangham

In English-speaking contexts, the terms blood group and blood type are generally used interchangeably, though with a preference in the United States for blood type and in the United Kingdom for blood group. Because this book is largely about events and people in the United Kingdom, I have chosen to use blood group and blood grouping throughout.

In July 1939, British citizens responded for the first time to a nationwide appeal for blood. War was threatening and the Ministry of Health hoped that a nationwide transfusion service would help mitigate the bloody effects of aerial bombardment. Responding to street posters, advertisements placed in newspapers, and radio appeals, tens of thousands of people in London, Manchester, and Bristol traveled to local hospitals to have their earlobes or fingertips punctured with needles. At recruitment centers, nurses took a few drops of each volunteers blood into a glass tube, diluted it in saline, and passed it to a trained serologist, who determined the donors blood groupa crucial measure to ensure compatibility between donor and transfusion recipient (figure 0.1). While nurses and serologists handled the blood, clerks filled out forms and index cards with donors names, addresses, and general health conditions. A few days later, each volunteer received a donor card through the mail, color-coded by blood group, readying him or her to answer the call. Blood transfusion was not newsmall-scale local enterprises had been operating in several countries for nearly two decadesbut this was the first time the British government had directly appealed to its citizens for their blood. In a remarkable commitment to the nascent war effort, by the end of July, the Emergency Blood Transfusion Service had enlisted 100,000 people. Being a card-carrying blood donor was a novel way in which the British people could commit to the war effort.

0.1 Photograph of a donor having a sample taken for a blood grouping test at the North West London Blood Supply Depot in Slough. A nurse in a white uniform stands over a potential donor to prick her earlobe and withdraw a drop of blood. On the table, next to a bunch of flowers and on a crisp tablecloth, sits a wooden block with test tubes for collecting small samples. Made as part of a series of publicity photos for the Emergency Blood Transfusion Service between 1940 and 1943, the image conveys the calm atmosphere of the depot and the serene demeanor of the donor. 21 16 cm.

Reproduced with the kind permission of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

As donors came together in this collective act of self-defense, scientists used the mass bloodletting for a new kind of genetics. A community of geneticists associated with Britains Medical Research Council (MRC) was already engaged in a project to use blood groups to transform human heredity into a mathematically rigorous science. At the Galton Serological Laboratory at University College in Central London, one of those scientists was statistician and geneticist R. A. Fisher, who had recently been appointed professor of eugenics. Fisher believed blood groups might be used as prognostic tools for heritable diseases and as data for testing theoretical evolutionary models. When transfusion-service planners appealed to the Galton Serological Laboratory for urgent assistance in testing the July rush of volunteers, Fisher saw a magnificent opportunity to scale up his research. His serologist colleague George Taylor and other lab members began training hundreds of young women in the techniques of blood grouping; meanwhile Fisher and his secretary Barbara Simpson transcribed the blood group results from thousands of donor cards, transforming this clinical information into genetic diversity data. The London donors were unaware of it, but the scientists were turning their blood into a valuable resource for studying genetic diversity. In fact, they were taking part in one of the first large-scale surveys of human genetics ever undertaken.

This book explores how midcentury human genetics was built on the practices of extracting, moving, and transfusing blood. July 1939 was a special moment in the forging of this relationship. Since the 1920s, transfusion had gradually transformed from a perilous surgical procedure into a routine therapy. This was in part owing to the realization that the success of transfusion could be improved by paying attention to the blood groups of donor and recipient. As transfusion expanded its reach, donor registries grew and lists of blood groups swelled. Meanwhile, researchers interested in human heredity and eugenics gained an object to reckon with: in the 1930s, blood groups became widely understood as human traits inherited according to the clear-cut pattern predicted by the pioneer of genetics, Gregor Mendel. To many, the ABO groupsthe first blood group system to be identifiedrepresented the most promising path to mapping human chromosomes and understanding race, and their study was highly prized by those who felt that human heredity needed a firmer footing. The abundant bureaucracy of the transfusion service offered the perfect material for this enterprise. Then, on the eve of war, transfusion and genetics became institutionally linked in Britain for the first time. Researchers studying blood group genetics became integrally involved in the practical work of the transfusion services, and these enterprises remained closely intertwined for the next twenty years. Wartime transfusion brought massive numbers of people into a bureaucratic system that was capable of defining and elaborating human genetic difference.