Early Days of Giving Blood

Recently in the news there have been articles about a shortage of blood donations. Since the pandemic, donations have dropped off for a variety of reasons. But the need for blood is just as important as always.

My father was a Biology, Anatomy, and Zoology teacher when World War Two began. During the War, he served for four years in the Army and was stationed in Luzon and New Guinea with the 27th Army General Hospital. Among his experiences during his time in the Army, he was part of a 21-member team which established the first Blood Bank in the South Pacific during World War Two.

He later wrote about that first Blood Bank: "The unit was located in Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, prior to the invasion of the Philippines in March 1945. Blood donors were brought to the 27th General Hospital…only Group 'O' donors were taken, Group 'O' being the 'universal donor.' The GIs were brought in from the staging areas in the vicinity. We worked 14-15 hour shifts, seven days a week, for many months. Blood was stored in special ice-refrigerated containers. The whole blood was checked daily. Any blood that was hemolyzed (meaning there is breakdown of the red blood cells) was discarded as unsafe for transfusion. Many times when hemolysis was indicated early, the plasma portion was removed. Plasma could be stored indefinitely and was safe to use in an emergency."

During their lives, both of my parents were the recipients of donated blood because of surgery and other health issues. I was always enormously grateful to those unknown people whose donations of blood helped to keep my parents alive. The importance of Blood Banks and the need for blood donations is always driven home when a transfusion of healthy blood is required by us or a loved one.

The history of blood transfusions dates back to the 1600s, but truly successful blood transfusion methods come along only after Dr. Karl Landsteiner discovered the different blood types in 1900. He would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work.

The first part of today's Years of Yore comes from a special edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune, published in celebration of Hibbing's 90th Birthday in 1983. This first article was written by Ann Cornell for the Hibbing Historical Society in 1983.

—

We live in an era marked by daily miracles of medical wizardry, with doctors putting accident victims back together, performing by-pass surgery, and helping people live much longer lives.

One of the great medical advancements in the 20th Century was the establishment of blood banks in hospitals. So these days, usually low on the list of a patient's worries is whether there will be blood available for necessary transfusions. However, there was a time not too long ago when the availability of blood was a great worry of both patient and doctor.

Before 1937 on the Iron Range, patients needing blood transfusions had to rely on family members to donate to them. However, even with a relative willing to donate, there were still complications, including mismatched blood types, the need for more than one pint of blood—which is usually all that a person can donate at one time, or an emergency where no relative can be reached.

Charles Bardessono, an agent for the Kansas City Fire and Marine Insurance Company in Hibbing, decided to change the inadequacy of the transfusion system. On October 13, 1937, Bardessono, Deputy Grand Knight of the Hibbing Knights of Columbus, presented to his fellow Knights a plan for establishing a Blood Donors' Group in Hibbing. The purpose was to make blood available, free of charge, to anyone in need.

(If you are not familiar with the Knight of Columbus, it is a global Catholic men's fraternal service organization still very active today.)

The Blood Donors' Group was NOT a blood bank, for at that time the Range—nor, indeed, most all of the country—did not have the facilities or medical know-how for such a system where blood could be stored for a period of time before being used. Instead, the Blood Donors' Group was designed to provide transfusions known as "direct" or "immediate," in which the blood was used right away.

According to a letter written in September 1939 by Hibbing Chairman of the Knights Lee Cole to a Brother Knight in the Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Knights' Council, the proposal by Brother Knight Charles Bardessono in 1937, "met with instant response, so a committee of three was appointed to investigate and carry on the work."

The appointed council consisted of Cole, Bardessono, and M.J. Donovan. They organized the Group, arranged to have the blood types taken of their Brother volunteers, notified the area hospitals, and spent many hours promoting the program statewide.

The Hibbing Blood Donors' Group was the first of its kind in the state, and possibly the first in the country. According to notes written by Cole on January 25, 1939, "Our Council can be credited with forming the first Blood Donors' organization in Hibbing, and is without a doubt one of the first to form such an organization within the national organization of the Knights of Columbus."

As a brand new program, it took several years for the donor project to become fully accepted by people and to get the system running smoothly. According to Michael Laurienzo, Bardessono was responsible for much of the success of the program. Laurienzo, owner and manager of Modern Shoe Repair in Hibbing, joined the Knights around 1932 and remembers Bardessono well. "Charles was a gentleman, an honest person. He was civically minded with a lot on the ball. He put in a lot of time to promote the Blood Donors."

According to Laurienzo, Bardessono was quite an advocate of the blood donors because he wanted to help people and "see that everyone who needed blood was taken care of."

Bardessono could have been motivated by the thought that, if a transfusion had been available in 1921, his mother might have lived. Adeline Scavarda, from Bessemer, Michigan, remembers that her grandmother, Charles Bardessono's mother, died of pernicious anemia. Scavarda said, "Whether the direct cause of her death was a lack of a blood transfusion, I do not know. However, I do know it was almost impossible to obtain a blood donor at that time, and it was then he decided to start a Blood Donors' Group."

Bardessono and the Supreme Physician of the Knights, Dr. Edward W. Fahey, promoted the Group at many local Knights' Councils and at the State Council meeting of the Knights. According to an article written by Bardessono for a newsletter in 1941 titled "Why I Am A Knight of Columbus," the need for a blood donor system is "so vitally important in present day medical practice that our Supreme Council, through the personal efforts of our own Supreme Physician Dr. Edward W. Fahey, lost no time approving the blood program and urging every Council of the Order to take up this worthwhile movement. The experience of seeing the good works of this organization is powerful."

During the first few months of the program in Hibbing, confusion tended to occur when calls were made for emergency transfusions. From a letter written by Lee Cole on September 14, 1939, to another Knights' Council, he cited one confusing incident from 1937 in which 80 volunteers responded to a call put out for an emergency transfusion before the hospital had even checked the patient's blood type. In the same letter, Cole also mentioned that the Blood Donors' Group was now on its way to becoming much more organized. Cole explained that he was the one to call members of the Group whose blood matched that of a patient once the hospital called him with that information.

He added, "I know the circumstances concerning each donor better than the doctors do, and I try not to call any of the members more than once every six months."

The first blood donation given by the Knights was to Mr. J.P. Rowan at the Adams Hospital on October 15, 1937, by Lee Cole, Tony Vellella, and James (Mickey) McDowell.

During the latter part of 1940, many people outside of the Knights of Columbus organization were also drawn into the humanitarian act of donating blood. An example of this occurred on November 25, 1940, as cited in the Knights' year-end report. Quite a bit of excitement was raised in Keewatin when it became known that Mrs. Guy Daniels urgently needed blood. Eighteen men and women volunteered to have their blood tested, but Mary Sorti was the only one whose blood matched the patient's. The very next day, the fire siren sounded in Keewatin calling for donor volunteers and 20 men and women rushed to the hospital for testing. Obviously, more people than just the men who were members of the Knights of Columbus were willing to donate.

Hibbing, too, experienced generous donating. On December 29, 1940, all blood donors with a specific blood type were asked to report within 20 minutes; more than 25 people responded. Another day, Lee Cole received a call for an urgent need for blood of a certain type for Steve Pocrnich of Webb Location. Cole called two men who had just recently returned home and gone to bed after their shift at the mine. They immediately got up and headed to the Rood Hospital to give blood.

People were so moved by the opportunity to help another human being in this remarkable way that they donated with little thought to their own well-being. From a June 23, 1942, article in the Knights of Columbus News, a Virginia, Minnesota Knight, a Mr. Kraker, was called to give blood immediately to a local man who had severed an artery. Kraker had already been notified of the need for his blood type for a Nopeming man, but no one else was available, so he gave to the Virginia man. The next day Kraker was driven to Nopeming and gave blood to the man there as he had promised.

Back then, no one knew that it takes eight weeks for the body to replace the red blood cells after a donation, except maybe the family of William Bocca.

Bocca was a 37-year-old father living in New York in 1940. According to an Associated Press story, Boca had three hemophiliac sons, meaning they could easily have uncontrolled bleeding. He had given 106 pints of blood to them in a four-year period. On November 18, 1940, he died after failing to respond to five transfusions that he received after giving away so much of his own blood.

A death of this nature is not surprising, considering what little was still fully known about transfusions and the primitive methods still used in performing them.

While large cities were improving their medical techniques, and great advances were occurring along the lines of blood transfusions in efforts to keep pace with the demands put upon medicine during World War Two, Hibbing continued with its original way of transfusing blood.

In 1943, Badessono and the Knights prepared a film demonstrating the techniques of blood-typing and transfusing which was used in the nurse's training program at Hibbing General Hospital, previously known as the Rood Hospital. In this film, blood was taken from a donor in a sterile room. The blood was collected in a flask and the nurse then had to stir it continuously. A salt solution was then added to prevent coagulation and allow the blood to flow easily into the patient.

To perform the transfusion, the blood was poured through a towel into an open-ended bottle which was hooked up to the patient. A warm towel was then wrapped around the blood bottle to prevent the blood from getting too chilled.

This film was shared with other hospitals and organizations wanting to learn about the Blood Donors' Program.

Hibbing's Blood Donor's Group continued to thrive through 1952, while throughout the rest of the nation Blood Banks were becoming more popular as the necessary equipment and knowledge was more widespread. Blood Donor Groups were becoming obsolete, having served their important role until being replaced by a better system.

In April 1953, the Minnesota Blood Bank was established at Hibbing General Hospital through the guidance of the Rotary Club in Hibbing. The Blood Donors' Group was then discontinued.

In a letter written by Charles Bardessono to the final chairman of the Minnesota State Blood Donors Group, he stated, "May I say, personally, I have never taken part in any program that has held my attention so acutely and brought so much real satisfaction."

—

From my long-time friend Judy Nollet comes this "follow-up" to the previous article. Judy's father, Dr. Donald Nollet, came to Hibbing in May 1955. He worked at Hibbing General Hospital as the pathologist and also was the medical director of the Hibbing Blood Bank. The following is taken from an article written by Burnette Peterson and published in the Hibbing Daily Tribune on December 6, 1955, during a blood drive encouraging people to become members of the Blood Bank.

—

Dr. Nollet points out the unusual benefits of becoming a member of the Blood Bank that are available to the individual, adding that the signing and typing of new members has an even wider benefit to the community as a whole:

"When the individual has his blood typed, without charge to him, this results in one of the greatest possible benefits to the community. In case of emergency, when there is a sudden need for blood, there is at once available a list of blood donors in the area, whose blood types are known and who can be called upon.

"Where a community does not have such a list of people previously typed, lives are often lost because of the time lost in screening willing donors trying to find one with the right blood type.

"Hibbing and Chisholm can be justly proud of their fine community blood banks. They should be indebted to the civic-minded citizens, the blood bank organization and the directors who have so tirelessly worked to keep the blood bank operating so efficiently.