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A review by simlish
Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce by Douglas Starr
3.0
Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce is much more narrowly focused than I expected, based on the title. In actuality, it's a history of transfusion. It's also older than I realized (published in 2000) and a little dated due to that. It's also one of the driest books I've ever managed to make myself complete. At 496 pages, it feels like a lot more. Even in the final chapter and epilogue I had trouble pushing myself through to the finish line. I stuck with it because it truly is an interesting topic, incredibly well researched, and definitely intended to be accessible, if not quite actually there.
My other biggest problem with Blood is the homophobia -- it's clearly not intentionally homophobic, but the author refers to "gays," constantly uses the term '"innocent" victims of AIDS,' and is a proponent for screening gay men out of the donor pool, even with a reliable test for AIDS, and even with the shifting demographics of who's most likely to have AIDS (which is not mentioned within the book).
On the positives, the book is well arranged around eras of blood, starting with early attempts at transfusion (terrifyingly misguided, how on earth did humanity survive to this point), cultural beliefs around blood, underlying social factors that affected later donor pools and comfort around transfusion. The second section is largely about World War II and the leaps forward made in transfusion technology around it. The third section is about the effect of AIDS on the blood industry.
It's not a book I would recommend to anyone who isn't interested in blood and the transfusion industry, but I definitely learned a lot, about blood, transfusion, and hemophilia.
My other biggest problem with Blood is the homophobia -- it's clearly not intentionally homophobic, but the author refers to "gays," constantly uses the term '"innocent" victims of AIDS,' and is a proponent for screening gay men out of the donor pool, even with a reliable test for AIDS, and even with the shifting demographics of who's most likely to have AIDS (which is not mentioned within the book).
On the positives, the book is well arranged around eras of blood, starting with early attempts at transfusion (terrifyingly misguided, how on earth did humanity survive to this point), cultural beliefs around blood, underlying social factors that affected later donor pools and comfort around transfusion. The second section is largely about World War II and the leaps forward made in transfusion technology around it. The third section is about the effect of AIDS on the blood industry.
It's not a book I would recommend to anyone who isn't interested in blood and the transfusion industry, but I definitely learned a lot, about blood, transfusion, and hemophilia.