Editing Blood bank (section)

===Medical advances===
[[File:Private Roy W. Humphrey of Toledo, Ohio is being given blood plasma after he was wounded by shrapnel in Sicily on 8-9-43 - NARA - 197268.jpg|thumb|Wounded soldier is given [[blood plasma]] in [[Sicily]], 1943.]]

A blood collection program was initiated in the US in 1940 and [[Edwin Cohn]] pioneered the process of [[blood fractionation]]. He worked out the techniques for isolating the [[serum albumin]] fraction of [[blood plasma]], which is essential for maintaining the [[oncotic pressure|osmotic pressure]] in the [[blood vessel]]s, preventing their collapse.

The use of blood plasma as a substitute for whole blood and for transfusion purposes was proposed as early as 1918, in the correspondence columns of the ''[[British Medical Journal]]'', by Gordon R. Ward. At the onset of [[World War II]], liquid plasma was used in Britain. A large project, known as 'Blood for Britain' began in August 1940 to collect blood in [[New York City]] hospitals for the export of plasma to [[United Kingdom|Britain]]. A dried plasma package was developed, which reduced breakage and made the transportation, packaging, and storage much simpler.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/blood/chapter1.htm|title=Office of Medical History|website=history.amedd.army.mil|access-date=4 May 2018|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161218150653/http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/blood/chapter1.htm|archive-date=18 December 2016}}</ref>

[[File:Charles R Drew portrait.png|thumb|left|[[Charles R. Drew]] oversaw the production of blood plasma for shipping to Britain during WW2.]]

The resulting dried plasma package came in two tin cans containing 400&nbsp;cc bottles. One bottle contained enough [[distilled water]] to reconstitute the dried plasma contained within the other bottle. In about three minutes, the plasma would be ready to use and could stay fresh for around four hours.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/blood/chapter7.htm|title=Office of Medical History|website=history.amedd.army.mil|access-date=4 May 2018|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170609105142/http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/blood/chapter7.htm|archive-date=9 June 2017}}</ref> [[Charles R. Drew]] was appointed medical supervisor, and he was able to transform the [[test tube]] methods into the first successful mass production technique.

Another important breakthrough came in 1939–40 when [[Karl Landsteiner]], Alex Wiener, Philip Levine, and R.E. Stetson discovered the [[Rh blood group system]], which was found to be the cause of the majority of [[transfusion reaction]]s up to that time. Three years later, the introduction by [[John Freeman Loutit|J.F. Loutit]] and Patrick L. Mollison of [[acid-citrate-dextrose]] (ACD) solution, which reduced the volume of anticoagulant, permitted transfusions of greater volumes of blood and allowed longer-term storage.

Carl Walter and W.P. Murphy Jr. introduced the [[plastic bag]] for blood collection in 1950. Replacing breakable [[glass]] bottles with durable plastic bags allowed for the evolution of a collection system capable of safe and easy preparation of multiple blood components from a single unit of whole blood.

Further extending the shelf life of stored blood up to 42 days was an anticoagulant preservative, CPDA-1, introduced in 1979, which increased the blood supply and facilitated resource-sharing among blood banks.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Sugita|first1=Yoshiki|last2=Simon|first2=Ernest R.|date=1965|title=The Mechanism of Action of Adenine in Red Cell Preservation|journal=Journal of Clinical Investigation|volume=44|issue=4|pages=629–642|issn=0021-9738|pmid=14278179|pmc=292538|doi=10.1172/JCI105176}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Simon|first1=Ernest R.|last2=Chapman|first2=Robert G.|last3=Finch|first3=Clement A.|date=1962|title=Adenine in Red Cell Preservation|journal=Journal of Clinical Investigation|volume=41|issue=2|pages=351–359|issn=0021-9738|pmid=14039291|pmc=289233|doi=10.1172/JCI104489}}</ref>