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Zusammenfassung von Nine Pints

Name: Nine Pints
Rating: 4.5 (46 reviews)
Author: Rose George

Rose George

A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood

4.5 (46 Bewertungen)

24 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

Nine Pints by Rose George is a fascinating exploration of the science, culture, and history of blood. From blood donation to menstruation, it covers topics ranging from medical advances to societal stigmas.

Themen

Kultur Europäische Geschichte Naturwissenschaft Medizin & Naturheilmittel

Inhaltsübersicht

Nine Pints
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What’s in it for me? An injection of blood knowledge.

The average adult has between nine and eleven pints of blood. This rich red liquid fights off disease, plugs our wounds and transports nutrients and fuel to our trillions of cells. But how often do we stop to think about this literal life force that sustains us? It’s about time we had blood on the brain.

From specialized cells to specific blood types, the science of blood is remarkable. It’s far from the full story, though. Blood carries strong cultural resonance, with wars propelling the creation of blood donation institutions and a multibillion dollar industry developing blood-derived medications. The history of blood is an entirely human history.

It’s high time, then, that we learned about the significance and wider impact of this incredible bodily fluid. Blood flows through every single one of us, so we might as well learn as much as we can about it!

In these blinks, you’ll find out

how blood types work;
which substance makes up most of our blood; and
why medicinal leeches are still in use today.

Blood is a useful but complicated compound.

There’s a paradox about blood: while most of us are more interested in the lungs or heart, both of these organs only perform their functions to serve the blood. That is, the lungs are there to introduce oxygen into the blood, while the heart moves blood around the body.

Blood is the Swiss Army knife of our bodies: it’s an everyday tool with many functions.

Our 30 trillion red blood cells, which give blood its distinctively rich color, deliver oxygen to the body’s organs and tissues. These cells also conduct waste disposal, carrying the used oxygen – now converted into carbon dioxide – back to the lungs for removal. In a single day, these cells travel a combined total of 12,000 miles.

Blood contains other cells, too. Platelets, for example, will move to a site of bleeding to help clot the blood and stop the flow. When you injure yourself and see the bleeding slow down, you’re witnessing a dazzling biological dance involving millions of platelets and proteins.

There are also white blood cells – the weapons of our immune system. When our bodies detect a threat, whether from a virus, bacteria or toxin, white blood cells attach themselves to the intruder and digest it.

Given all the valuable functions of blood, it’s no wonder that blood transfusions are a crucial procedure in medical care. We transfuse red blood cells into transplant patients to help their bodies accept new organs, and cancer patients with too few platelets are infused with millions more. Globally, someone receives a stranger’s blood every three seconds.

But we can’t transfuse a patient with just any blood.

All blood has a type, which is determined by antigens, that is, molecules that stick to the surface of red blood cells. But antigens come in different types. All blood cells have H antigens; it’s the combination of A and B antigens that determines blood type. Type A blood has only A antigens, and Type B has only B. Type AB has both, while Type O has neither.

Type is then further classified according to the Rhesus factor, which identifies the blood as either “positive” or “negative” depending on its specific cocktail of antigens. Our bodies will only accept blood of the correct type. The body of a patient with A negative blood will reject a transfusion of B positive. In the most severe cases, the patient can even go into hemolytic shock and die.

Leeches, however, welcome all blood types.

Leeches are still a valuable medicinal tool.

Try not to shudder – we’re going to talk about leeches. These little critters are almost universally despised by humankind, who view them as slimy little parasites. But while leeches might not be the most glamorous creatures in the animal kingdom, they have played a central role in medical care for centuries.

Throughout most of our history, the leech has been prized for its bloodsucking ability.

Dame Janet Vaughan revolutionized blood collection and delivery in Britain.

Few women have had a bigger impact on British medical care than Dame Janet Vaughan.

Born in 1899, Vaughan fought to receive an education when educated women were frowned upon, studying medical sciences at the University of Oxford and graduating with distinction. While at Oxford, she also first encountered her lifelong passion: the research of blood.

Unlike blood as a whole, plasma is a multibillion-dollar industry.

We popularly think of plasma as a futuristic energy source in far-fetched science fiction universes. But there’s plasma closer to home that’s just as impressive – in fact, it’s flowing through your veins right now. Plasma makes up over half of your blood’s volume and consists of fat, water, salt, proteins, antibodies and coagulants that help clot the blood.

There are several ways we can harvest plasma for medicinal purposes. First, it can be separated from blood after a donation, yielding fresh frozen plasma (FFP). FFP transfusions are normally used to encourage blood clotting.

Menstruation is still not entirely understood and in certain countries remains taboo.

For a process so natural, it’s incredible that discussing menstruation still elicits embarrassment, silence or outright disgust. This extends to politics in the UK, where activists have campaigned for years to classify female sanitary products as a necessity, which would exempt them from tax. In many developing countries, the issues are far more serious and ingrained.

In Nepal, for instance, there’s the practice of chaupadi. It involves physically isolating menstruating women from their families, forcing them to sleep in tiny, dirty outhouses.

HIV and AIDS are remarkably complex, but treatments have improved massively.

AIDS is a syndrome characterized by a malfunctioning immune system, dangerously lowering the body’s defenses – and it’s caused by HIV. To understand both HIV and AIDS, we need to understand the blood, particularly, CD4 white blood cells.

These cells are extremely important to our immune system, recognizing threats to the body and releasing chemicals that attract other white blood cells to the danger zone. CD4 cells are like air traffic controllers, guiding white blood cells to their destination.

Blood transfusions are a key technique for treating severe trauma patients.

Trauma is a shortened term for traumatic injury – sudden, severe physical damage requiring immediate treatment. Although it’s mentioned less frequently than cancer or HIV, trauma is still the cause of 10 percent of deaths worldwide. Of these, 40 percent die from severe bleeding.

How does this happen, if our blood is supposed to clot?

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Worum geht es in Nine Pints?

Nine Pints (2018) explores the rich but neglected story of blood. Taking a panoramic view and approaching the subject from multiple angles, Rose George looks into the science of blood and details some of the institutions, businesses and taboos that have arisen around this vital fluid.

Wer Nine Pints lesen sollte

Armchair doctors fascinated by medical science
Anyone not clued up on the brilliance of blood
Squeamish souls who need to face their fears

Über den Autor

Rose George is a British author and journalist, whose work has been published in The Guardian and The New York Times. Her previous books include Ninety Percent of Everything (2013), a look into the international shipping industry, and The Big Necessity (2008), an inquiry into the world of human waste and sanitation.

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