Originally produced for a CDROM (and reduced in size here for the
internet) this is one of four animations demonstrating the clotting cascade - a
sequence of events that happens to repair damage after a wound occurs.
Blood Facts:
Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943), a Viennese physician, discovered
that when blood samples taken from certain people were mixed together the red blood
cells clumped together - yet in others the clumping did not occur. This
clumping is due to antigens, reactive compounds, on the surfaces of the red blood
cells. Landsteiner discovered that human blood could be sorted into four different types
based on antigen patterns the blood carried: A, B, A + B, and neither A nor B.
This gave rise to our current ABO blood grouping system. For his pioneering work on
blood and physical-chemical immunity theory Karl Landsteiner won a 1930 Nobel Prize.
Hemophilia is a hereditary disease where the blood does not clot
properly and is caused by a deficiency in either antihemophilic factors VIII or IX..
Bleeding can occur into the soft tissues, muscles, and joints. Fatal bleeding can happen
even after a minor injury or surgical procedure. Treatment of this disease involves
increasing the deficient factors to a normal level.
By the 1920's, thermocautery was introduced to repair
detached retinas.
Today, Electrocautery is performed using specific probes
or instruments (as the Remorgida, above), which have electric current running through
them, to cauterize the tissue.
