Luis Agote (September 22, 1868 – November 12, 1954) was an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and researcher. He was the first to perform a non-direct

blood transfusion Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but mo ...

using

sodium citrate Sodium citrate may refer to any of the sodium salts of citric acid (though most commonly the third): * Monosodium citrate * Disodium citrate * Trisodium citrate The three forms of salt are collectively known by the E number E331. Applications ...

as an

anticoagulant Anticoagulants, commonly known as blood thinners, are chemical substances that prevent or reduce coagulation of blood, prolonging the clotting time. Some of them occur naturally in blood-eating animals such as leeches and mosquitoes, where t ...

. The procedure took place in Rawson hospital in the city of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

on November 9, 1914. Agote was the first to perform this procedure in

the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

. Agote worked independently and separately from the Belgian surgeon

Albert Hustin Albert Hustin (1882–1967) was a Belgian medical doctor. Hustin was born in Ethe and died in Uccle (Uccle Brussels – Belgium). In 1914, he was the first person to successfully practice non-direct blood transfusions with sodium citrate used ...

, who discovered that sodium citrate in tolerable quantities could anticoagulate blood for transfusion on March 27, 1914.

Biography

Agote was the son of a politician. He studied first in the

Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires (''National School of Buenos Aires'') is a public high school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, affiliated to the University of Buenos Aires. In the tradition of the European ''gymnasium'' it provides a free education ...

, and then at the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one of the most presti ...

Faculty of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...

, where he was also a teacher. He graduated as a doctor in 1893 with a thesis about suppurative hepatitis. He became Secretary of the National Department of Hygiene in 1894 and became head of the leper hospital in 1895 on the island of Martin Garcia. He was elected Congressman in 1910 and Senator in 1916 of the legislature in Argentina.

First recorded transfusions

The first recorded blood transfusion was made between dogs by the English doctor Richard Lower around 1666. In 1667, French scientist Juan Bautista Denys transfused a human with animal blood. In 1900,

Karl Landsteiner Karl Landsteiner (; 14 June 1868 – 26 June 1943) was an Austrian-born American biologist, physician, and immunologist. He distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from ...

identified some of the blood substances responsible for the agglutination of red blood cells, identifying blood groups for the first time and some of their incompatibilities. Direct transfusions were still not practiced at the beginning of the 20th century because it was impossible to keep unaltered blood outside the body for later use. After 6–12 minutes, coagulation begins manifested initially by a gradual increase of

viscosity The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the int ...

that terminates with almost complete solidification.

Coagulation Coagulation, also known as clotting, is the process by which blood changes from a liquid to a gel, forming a blood clot. It potentially results in hemostasis, the cessation of blood loss from a damaged vessel, followed by repair. The mechanism ...

is the defense of an organism to staunch wounds and minimize hemorrhages. Now we know that clotting is almost totally formed by platelets fastened by a network of filaments of

fibrin Fibrin (also called Factor Ia) is a fibrous, non-globular protein involved in the clotting of blood. It is formed by the action of the protease thrombin on fibrinogen, which causes it to polymerize. The polymerized fibrin, together with pl ...

. Fibrin does not normally exist in blood and is created from protein plasma by the action of the thrombin enzyme. Similarly, thrombin is not naturally present in blood and is created by the precursor substance prothombrin, in a process that involves platelets, some exiting from calcium and substances produced by lesioned materials. Since clots are not created if there is a lack of some of these elements, the addition of

(which eliminates calcium ions from blood) prevents its formation.

References

External links

Agote's short biography
(Spanish)
Biography
(Spanish)
Genealogia Familiar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agote, Luis 1868 births 1954 deaths Argentine inventors Argentine physicians People from Buenos Aires University of Buenos Aires alumni Burials at La Recoleta Cemetery Argentine leprologists 20th-century Argentine physicians