PMLS History Of Medical Technology In Global Context Practice Test

The main idea here is understanding how blood compatibility works. Karl Landsteiner showed that red blood cells carry different surface antigens, specifically A and B, and that people have antibodies in their plasma against the antigens they don’t possess. By discovering the ABO blood group system in 1901, he explained why some transfusions caused agglutination and others didn’t, leading to a safe way to match donors and recipients. This classification into A, B, AB, and O types made transfusion medicine possible and dramatically reduced lethal reactions. Landsteiner’s work is foundational to modern immunohematology and earned him the Nobel Prize in 1930. Other famous physicians like Jenner, Fleming, and Pasteur made breakthroughs in vaccination, antibiotics, and germ theory, but not in blood typing.