Blood Work (26 page)

6
All details of the experiments and outcomes are drawn from the Académie des Sciences archive manuscript coauthored by Perrault, Gayant, and Auzout (22 January 1667); Perrault, “De la transfusion du sang” and “An Account of More Tryals of Transfusion,”
Philosophical Transactions
, October 21, 1667.

7
Perrault, “De la transfusion du sang,” 428, 429–430, 437.

8
Ibid., 425–426.

9
Picon,
Claude Perrault
, 223–230;
Catholic Encyclopedia
, vol. 1, ed. Charles Herbermann, s.v. “Perrault.”

CHAPTER 9: THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

1
Claude Perrault, “De la transfusion du sang,” 423.

2
Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, book 7.

3
The overlap of the two fields would continue well into the eighteenth
century, when chemistry would begin to shift more clearly toward medical chemistry or what we now call pharmacy—which helps to explain why, in England, the popular word for pharmacist is still chemist. Newman and Principe, “Alchemy vs. Chemistry,” 38, 39. See also Principe,
The Aspiring Adept
, 107–111.

4
Hall,
Henry Oldenburg
, 67.

5
Boyle, “Incalescence,” 528, 529.

6
“Tryals Proposed by Mr. Boyle to Dr. Lower…for the Improvement of Transfusing Blood Out of One Live Animal into Another,”
Philosophical Transactions
22 (February 11, 1666): 385–388.

7
Ibid., 386–387.

8
Odoric,
Travels
, 114.

9
See Bondeson,
Two-Headed Boy
, 2. See also Wiesner,
Marvelous Hairy Girls.

10
Bondeson,
Two Headed-Boy
, 99.

11
Ibid., 37, 116.

12
The medieval travel writer Bartholomaeus Anglicus hedged all bets in his
On the Nature of Things
(c. 1230) and placed them under the rubrics of both “man” and “animal.” His volume drew so much interest that the Sorbonne was obliged to chain its manuscript copy of Bartholomaeus's text to prevent it from being stolen by readers. Ramey, “Monstrous Alterity,” 86.

13
Cited in Riesman, “Bourdelot,” 191.

14
Pepys,
Diary
, 14 November 1666.

15
Porter,
Greatest Benefit
, 201.

16
Ackerknecht,
Short History of Medicine
, 56.

17
Unlike in France, where iatrochemistry was still controversial, prominent natural philosophers like Boyle and Willis had come out strongly in favor of it. Hall, “English Medicine in the Royal Society's Correspondence,” 116.

18
Debus,
French Paracelsans
, 21–23.

19
Cited in ibid., 99.

20
Perrault, “De la transfusion du sang,” 409.

CHAPTER 10: THE BLOOD OF A BEAST

1
Sorbière discourse, 1663. Reprinted in Bigourdan,
Premières sociètes savantes
, 18.

2
“A Letter Concerning a New Way of Curing Sundry Diseases by Transfusion of Blood, Written to Monsieur de Montmor,”
Philosophical Transactions
, June 25, 1667.

3
Journal des sçavans
, April 8, 1667, 96. Reprinted in
Philosophical Transactions
.

4
Oldenburg to Stanislas Lubienietzki, 3 January 1667.

5
“An Account of an Easier and Safer Way of Transfusing Blood,”
Philosophical Transactions
, May 6, 1667: 451; “An Account of Another Experience of Transfusion, viz. of Bleeding a Mangy into a Sound Dog,”
Philosophical Transactions,
May 6, 1667: 451–452.

6
“An Account of an Easier and Safer Way of Transfusing Blood,”
Philosophical Transactions,
April 18, 1667: 450.

7
The Italians received news of Denis' transfusions via the
Philosophical Transactions
and the
Journal des sçavans.
Further demonstrating Italian interest in the procedure, the majority of Denis' reports were published, in translation, in 1668 by Emilio Maria Manolessi in his
Relazione dell'Esperienze Fatte in Inghilterra, Francia, ed Italia Intorno alla celebre e famosa trasfusione del sangue.

8
“An Extract out of the Italian Giornale de Letterati, about Two Considerable Experiments of the Transfusion of the Blood.”
Philosophical Transactions,
January 1, 1668, 840–842.

9
“Esperienze Fatte in Roma per la Trasfusione del Sangue,” in Manolessi,
Esperienze
, 36.

10
See Manfredi's dedication to Marie Mancini, who after marriage became Marie Colonna, in
De Nova et inaudia medico-chyrurgica operatione sanguinem transfudente de individuo ad individuum
, 1668.

11
“Concerning a New Way of Curing Sundry Diseases by Transfusion of Bloud,”
Philosophical Transactions
, June 25, 1667: 158–159.

12
Ibid.

13
Woolley,
The Queen-Like Closet
, 11; W. M.,
The Queen's Closet Opened
, 7–8.

14
Levy-Valensi,
La Médecine
, 123–125.

CHAPTER 11: THE TOWER OF LONDON

1
A few writers indicate that he was a
crocheteur
, a hook maker. The most reliable accounts indicate, however, that he was a butcher. References to a hook maker are not necessary inconsistent butcher references; hooks are used to hang meat for smoking, storage, and preparation, suggesting the man's butcher connections.

2
Hussey,
Paris: The Secret History
, 162–163.

3
Zeller, “French Diplomacy and Foreign Policy in Their European Setting,” 202.

4
Oldenburg to Boyle, 16 December 1667.

5
Hall,
Henry Oldenburg
, 85–86.

6
Browne,
Getting the Message
, 18. Sometimes foreign correspondents would “frank” the fees; that is, pay the postage up until their country's border. This would, however, not been entirely helpful for Oldenburg because he would be expected to prepay future outbound letters to Dover in kind. Hall,
Henry Oldenburg
, 83.

7
The original French version of Denis' letter is dated June 25. Yet Hall and Hall (
Priority Disputes
) speculate, as do I, that Oldenburg already had a copy of it, perhaps in manuscript, as early as June 20. In his letter to Boyle dated 25 September, 1667, Oldenburg explained that “I had the French Original before anybody had it in England, which was the same day of my confinement.” Oldenburg was arrested on June 20, presumably the same day he received Denis' letter.

8
“Concerning a New Way of Curing Sundry Diseases by Transfusion of Blood,”
Philosophical Transactions
, June 25, 1667: 489–490. Denis' emphasis.

9
Wallis to Oldenburg, 21 March 1667.

10
Pepys,
Diary
, 16 June 1667.

11
Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
, 78.

12
Quoted in Dickinson,
Sir Samuel Morland
, 96. Morland also devised “a most dextrous and expeditious way of copying out any sheet of paper close written on both sides in little more than a minutes time” for the task. Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
, 86.

13
Scheider,
Culture of Epistolarity
, 83.

14
Jardine,
Ingenious Pursuits,
323. For urine as invisible ink, see Boyle,
Memoirs for the Natural History of Humane Blood
, 256. Boyle also later tried using blood serum as ink. For techniques to reveal obscured letters, see Schneider,
The Culture of Epistolarity
, 83.

15
Marshall,
Intelligence and Espionage
, 80.

16
Hall,
Henry Oldenburg
, 113, 117.

17
Pepys,
Diary
, 25 June 1667.

18
On the timeline of Oldenburg's receipt of Denis' letter, see note 7 above.

19
See Webster, “The Origins of Blood Transfusion: A Reassessment,” 387–391.

20
Clarke to Oldenburg, April/May 1668,
Philosophical Transactions
, May 18, 1668: 672–682.

21
July 4, 1667. See McKie, 32–33.

22
Oldenburg to Seth Ward (for the Bishop of Exeter to be forwarded to the Bishop of Salisbury, via an unknown scribe), 15 July 1667.

23
Hall,
Henry Oldenburg
, 117.

24
Ibid., 120, 145–149.

25
Oldenburg to Boyle, 3 September 1667.

26
Oldenburg described Lower's visit in his letter to Boyle dated 24 September 1667.

27
“An Advertisement Concerning the Invention of the Transfusion of Blood,”
Philosophical Transactions
, July, August, September 1667: 489–490.

28
“An Account of More Tryals of Transfusion,”
Philosophical Transactions,
December 9, 1667: 517–519.

29
Justel to Oldenburg, 6 November 1667.

CHAPTER 12: BEDLAM

1
“An Account of an Easier and Safer Way of Transfusing Blood out of One Animal to Another,”
Philosophical Transactions,
May 6, 1667.

2
Birch,
History of the Royal Society
, vol. 2, 201. All references to the Royal Society's discussion and plans to begin human transfusion are from Birch's
History
, a contemporary record of the society's activities.

3
The diarist John Evelyn confirmed living conditions in Bedlam after a visit to the hospital on April 21, 1656. For a detailed study of madness in seventeenth-century England, see McDonald,
Mystical Bedlam
.

4
Boyle,
Some Considerations,
vol. 2, 58–59, cited in Lawrence and Shapin,
Science Incarnate
, 97.

5
There was no set of normative ethics that distinguished medical research from medical treatment in the early modern era. For a detailed study of the ethics of human experimentation, see Lederer,
Subjected to Science.

6
Macdonald,
Mystical Bedlam
, 190–191.

7
King to Boyle, 25 November 1667. King's account, “Of the Experiment of Transfusion Practiced upon a Man in London,” was also published in the
Philosophical Transactions.

8
King to Boyle, 25 November 1667. My description of the procedure is based on King's detailed account.

9
Ibid.

10
Oldenburg to Boyle, 25 November 1667.

11
Ibid., 25 November 1667.

12
Pepys,
Diary
, 30 November 1667.

13
Oldenburg to Sluse, 25 November 1667.

14
Birch,
History of the Royal Society
, vol 2, December 12, 1667.

15
Oldenburg to Boyle, 17 December 1667.

16
Printed in Stubbe,
A Specimen
, 179.

17
Nicolson,
Pepys' Diary and the New Science.

18
John Skippon to John Ray, January 24, 1668. Cited in Nicolson,
Pepys' Diary and the New Science
, 169.

19
Shadwell,
The Virtuoso
, act 2, ll. 206–211.

20
Académie des Sciences archive manuscript, Perrault, Gayant, Auzout, 22 January 1667.