Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with March 23.

Events

1930 – Surgeon Sergei Yudin (1891-1954) performed the first cadaver-to-human blood transfusion at the Sklifosovsky Institute, Moscow. Yudin transfused blood from a man killed in an car accident (six hours previously) to a young engineer who had attempted suicide. The patient was reported to “turn pink,” breathe more easily, and recover.

Yudin would later present his first seven cadaver-blood transfusions at the Fourth Congress of Ukrainian Surgeons in Kharkiv (September 1930), and the first one thousand transfusions in the Lancet in 1937

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Births

1833– Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833-1890), German neurologist; described Leyden-Westphal Ataxia (1872), Westphal Sign (1875), Westphal-Strümpell Pseudosclerosis (1883), Westphal syndrome (1885), Edinger-Westphal nucleus (1887)

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Deaths

1905 – Henri Parinaud (1844-1905), French ophthalmologist and neurologist; described Parinaud Syndrome (Dorsal Midbrain Syndrome) (1883), ,and Parinaud Oculoglandular Syndrome (1889)

1993 – Denis Parsons Burkitt (1911-1993), Irish surgeon; described Burkitt Lymphoma (1958)

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Further reading

• Yudin SS. Transfusion of stored cadaver blood. Practical considerations: the first thousand cases. Lancet 1937; 230(5946): 362-366
• Transfusion of massive doses of cadaver blood by the continuous drip method. JAMA. 1938; 111(8): 714–715.
• Alexi-Meskishvili V, Konstantino IE. Sergei S. Yudin: An untold story. Surgery, 2006; 139(1): 115-122