By Douglas M. Surgenor. 434 pp., illustrated. Boston, Center for Blood Research, 2002. (Distributed by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.) $34.95. ISBN 0-674-00962-2.
The opening sequences of the movie Saving Private Ryan reproducedthe landing of the U.S. armed forces at Omaha Beach on June6, 1944. An attentive observer would have noticed U.S. Navycorpsmen scurrying around the beachhead, infusing albumin intravenouslyinto wounded soldiers. By the summer of 1941, pure human albuminhad been prepared in the laboratory of Edwin J. Cohn (Figure)at Harvard Medical School. On December 8, 1941, the entire stockpileof human albumin at Harvard was seized by the government andflown to Honolulu, where it was infused into naval personnelwho had been severely . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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