Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 363

The ABO blood group system

In a footnote to an article in 1900, Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943) first expressed that the interagglutination of human blood samples was a physiological characteristic.

His complete article the following year “On Agglutination Phenomena of Normal Human Blood” is a milestone in medical science.

He concluded from his studies, expanding on the works of his peers at the time both in Austria and abroad that ‘group A’ blood would agglutinate with blood from ‘group B’ blood, but never its own type.  Similarly, ‘group B’ blood would agglutinate with ‘group A’, and ‘group C’ will agglutinate with groups A and B.

Reference:

• Landsteiner K. Zur Kenntnis der antifermentativen, lytischen und agglutinierenden Wirkungen des Blutserums und der Lymphe. Centralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde und Infektionskrankheiten. 1900; 27: 357-362. [The footnote]
• Landsteiner K. Über Agglutinationserscheinungen normalen menschlichen Blutes.
  Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1901; 14: 1132-1134 [English translation]

Uterus didelphys

From Ancient Greek δι– (“two“) + δελφύς (“womb“), the uterine didelphys presents with two uteri, two cervices and a single or double vagina.

Prevalence of didelphys uterus is reported to be between 0.3% and 5%. However, the true population prevalence is difficult to accurately determine, due to significant study heterogeneity, various diagnostic methods and no universally accepted classification system.

Note: not to be confused with Didelphis – a genus of New World marsupials, commonly known as Large American opossums, and members of the opossum order, Didelphimorphia

Reference:

• Crowley CM, Botros K, Hegazy IF, O’Donnell E. Uterine didelphys: diagnosis, management and pregnancy outcome. BMJ Case Rep. 2021 Mar 29;14(3):e242233.

A. 93 million.

Smith-Bindman and colleagues, writing in JAMA, analyzed data from 143 hospitals and outpatient centers across 20 U.S. states to evaluate a risk model estimating lifetime cancer risk from ionizing radiation due to CT imaging. In 2023, an estimated 61.5 million patients underwent 93 million CT scans—4.2% were children and 95.8% adults; 53% were female and 47% male.

Their modeling projected that this level of exposure could lead to approximately 103,000 additional cancer cases over the lifetimes of those scanned. If current imaging trends continue, CT-related cancers could eventually contribute to around 5% of all new cancer diagnoses annually.

References

• Smith-Bindman R, Chu PW, Azman Firdaus H, Stewart C, Malekhedayat M, Alber S, Bolch WE, Mahendra M, Berrington de González A, Miglioretti DL. Projected Lifetime Cancer Risks From Current Computed Tomography Imaging. JAMA Intern Med. 2025 Jun 1;185(6):710-719.

James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881), 20th president of the United States.

On July 2, 1881—just 16 years after Lincoln’s assassination—President James A. Garfield was shot twice by Charles J. Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. A local doctor was first on the scene, administering an ounce of brandy and one drachm of aromatic spirits of ammonia as stimulants. Soon after, Dr. D. Willard Bliss, a former Civil War surgeon, was summoned. He identified two wounds: a superficial one near the shoulder and a deeper one in the back. Bliss probed the back wound manually and with a solid instrument, feeling fragments of Garfield’s 11th rib but not locating the bullet—later found post-mortem behind the pancreas in the retroperitoneum.

Bliss called for two eminent surgeons: Dr. D. Hayes Agnew from the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Frank Hamilton from Bellevue Hospital in New York. Both arrived within days and similarly examined the wound by digital probing. Despite initial signs of improvement, Garfield soon developed persistent fevers and a wound discharging pus, bone fragments, and clothing fibers. He died on September 19, 1881. The autopsy revealed widespread sepsis and multiple abscesses. Guiteau, before his execution, famously declared, “Yes, I shot him, but his doctors killed him.”

To be fair, antiseptic practices were still not widely adopted in 1881. Though Joseph Lister had advocated for antiseptic surgery since the late 1860s, and Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch were gaining acclaim for their work on germ theory, the majority of surgeons remained unconvinced. Cleanliness in operating rooms was still the exception rather than the rule.

References

• The dirty, painful death of President James A. Garfield | PBS News