Brilliant promotion for a doubtful invention: The blood transfusion device of doctor joseph-antoine roussel (1837-1901) in european medical science and practice in 1860-1880

Abstract

In modern European historiography, the name of Dr. Joseph-Antoine Roussel and the device for blood transfusion he invented are commonly associated with the studies of the revival of transfusion in medicine in the 1870s. The discussion about the clinical application of transfusion methods, developed in the medical community during this period, was mostly confined to the technical issues: who should become a blood donor (animals or humans), which blood should be transfused (whole or defibrinated), and which method and device was better to use. Roussel was a proponent of transfusions of whole, unaltered venous human blood. The history of Roussel's device is presented in this article as an example of one of the first successful marketing campaigns, which was actively introduced into medical practice in the middle of the 19th century. Based on archival documents, articles, evaluations and reviews of the doctor's contemporaries, the authors have attempted to reconstruct the circumstances which determined the success of his "transfuser" among numerous competitors in the mid-1870s. Roussel's strategy was based on the needs of military field surgery, the development of means and methods of scientific communication, and the expansion of social interest in scientific and technical discoveries and inventions. The key elements of Roussel's advertising campaign were accessible and open demonstrations of the device for professionals, his reliance on the support of influential representatives from both the aristocracy and the professional community, and popularization of the device among ordinary people. As a result, in the 1870s Dr. Roussel managed not only to organize an international clinical trial of his device "in experiments on patients" with the involvement of the leading European and Russian doctors, but also to arrange the supply of his own device to the armies of Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Belgium.