Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 581

RICHARD LOWER (1631-1691) The method observed in transfusing the bloud out of one animal into another. (Detached from Philosophical transactions. Vol. I (1666), no. 20, pp. 353-358.) 21.7 cm.

Lower, a Cornishman, was one of the foremost English physiologists of the seventeenth century. A student and research assistant of Willis (see No. 537 ff.) at Oxford, he assisted Willis in the preparatory work for the latter's De cerebri anatome (see No. 538). Soon after receiving his M.D. degree in 1665, Lower relocated to London. He quickly acquired a large practice, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and later a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He became one of the most influential practitioners in London and assumed much of Willis' practice upon the latter's death. However, Lower later lost most of his practice because of his allegiance to the political cause of the Whigs. Lower was active in the scientific activities of the fledgling Royal Society along with such notable individuals as Willis, Robert Boyle (see No. 564 ff.), and Sir Christopher Wren. Being familiar with Wren's experiments in injecting various fluids into animal veins, in February 1665 Lower was successful in directly transfusing the blood from an artery of one dog into the vein of another. At Boyle's request, Lower sent an account of his experiment, which Boyle transmitted to the Royal Society. This December 17 issue of the Philosophical transactions reported Lower's procedures and observations. Although Lower was the first to perform a successful artery to vein transfusion from animal-to-animal, it remained for Jean Baptiste Denis (ca. 1640-1704), a professor at Montpellier, to successfully transfuse blood from animal-to-man at Paris in June 1667. Lower duplicated Denis' success in England in November 1667.

See Related Record(s): 537 538 564

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 2012

Gift of John Martin, M.D.