December 17: Saving Soldiers

Edwin Joseph Cohn, a biochemist whose work at Harvard Medical School with blood plasma saved many thousands of wounded soldiers during World War II, was born in New York City on this date in 1892. From 1938 to 1942, Cohn led the blood fractionation project, which most significantly isolated the serum albumin element of blood plasma. Albumin helps maintain osmotic pressure in the blood vessels to prevent their collapse; battlefield transfusions of the serum can prevent death from shock. After the war, Cohn developed systems by which every element of donated blood would be used, with nothing wasted. He created the Protein Foundation, now called the Center for Blood Research, in 1953, before dying from a stroke.

“Das Blut ist ein ganz besonderer Saft (Blood is a very special liquid).” —from Goethe’s Faust, inscribed in Cohn’s office