#Blood Work

[abybweisse]

Blood Work (p1), Elitism, transmutation, and religious fear

⚠️ long post ⚠️

So, I now have a copy of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, by Holly Tucker. It's a reference for Yana-san, as she mentioned it in her old tuna.be blog around the start of the blue arc.

I see in the list of important people a mention of the real Dr. Moreau, and there's a later chapter about chimeras... so I know I'll be talking about that some, over this series of posts.

It's important here, too, because when researchers were first attempting blood transfusions in the 17th century, people were terrified about receiving blood from animals, like sheep and cattle. They thought that animal blood would transmute humans into human-animal hybrids. Even in the 20th century, some white people were terrified of receiving blood from black people, because they thought the blood could effect the race of their future children or grandchildren. Nonsense, of course, but they didn't understand.

17th century blood transfusions were generally performed by taking blood from a lamb or a calf. The barbers/physicians/researchers had no clue about blood types. Jean-Baptiste Denis successfully transfused blood from a lamb into a teenage patient. Then he made several successful attempts at transfusing from a calf to a "madman". The guy later died, and Denis was blamed. Turns out some doctors who didn't want him to succeed had actually poisoned that second subject with arsenic.

It wasn't even a matter of those physicians wanting his experiments to fail while theirs worked; no, they simply didn't want blood transfusions to become a practice. They were afraid of transmutation from animal blood, and they were afraid of what animal-to-human blood transfusions would reveal about humanity -- that we are truly just animals, too. The trial against Denis ended research into blood transfusions for about 150 years.

Blood types were still unknown in the late 18th century, when a physician wanted to attempt to revive George Washington's largely exsanguinated corpse with a transfusion of lamb's blood. FYI, he died on a December 14th, just like Prince Albert. His family refused the offer only because they feared sullying his body with animal blood, and they insisted his body must be left untainted and wholly together for him to be properly received into heaven. Such was the continued lack of understanding. Yana-san might have given Undertaker the idea to use blood transfusions in conjunction with other techniques for the reanimating and revival process from the account of what that physician wanted to do to Washington.

When blood transfusion research was in full swing, in the 19th century, they were starting to piece together the idea of blood groups, but they still didn't quite know about things like universal whole blood donor and universal whole blood recipient. There was a strong elitist element to this, so they generally thought like could only be compatible with like. They also still saw non-human blood as inferior, even if it might be compatible. The best compatibility was expected between twins and then between close relatives.

I have a feeling that Yana-san has played around with this bias, which would explain why real Ciel is only receiving AB (Sirius) blood, Canopus B, Vega O, and Polaris A. All those people at Sphere Music Hall are led to believe they are being treated as equals, when they are in fact being split up into a caste system where some "stars" are of a higher magnitude than others. And, at times, Blavat Sky and others have made it clear they see some blood types as being less worthy than others. By extension, some people are treated as less worthy. Blavat seems to realize that Sirius can receive blood from other blood types, because he gives "leftovers" of Vega and Polaris blood to the Sirius renal patients. It's possible that real Ciel doesn't know he can have any type of whole blood, but I suspect he knows and simply doesn't think anything else is good enough for him.

I'd also like to mention Snake and Finny here, since we know Finny was injected with something to increase his strength and other traits. Then we see Snake with various attributes that are associated with snakes. In either case (or both) we could be dealing with transmutation. It's not realistic in our world, but it might very well be possible in theirs. Each of them might have been injected with chemical cocktails derived from other animals: Snake from snakes and Finny from perhaps a few completely different species.

We now know Snake wasn't born a snake and turned into a human, but there's nothing to say he wasn't born human and "adulterated" with snake traits. There's also the weird story the freak show attendant claims: human mother and snake father. Maybe not an actual snake as his father but more like his mother being injected with snake blood or something... and that producing a hybrid child. Again, not what we'd consider possible, but the Kuroverse plays by different rules.

One other aspect I want to touch on in this post: Othello's and Grelle's fears regarding the very nature of human souls and existence. This is a form of religious fear, not too different from what George Washington's family feared. His family feared he wouldn't be accepted into heaven, while these two reapers fear humans might no longer even need souls, and that heaven may no longer matter to them. What would that mean for the existence of reapers, when their supposed salvation requires them to keep collecting souls?

Well, I'll probably talk about bias and fear again, as well as these other issues, but I'll stop here... for now.

[hersurvival]

Where were you

To ask about the weather today?

As I sit shaking -

Hoping, as well as praying,

There is something wrong with my blood.

Where were you

To hear about the misty, chilly morning?

As I hugged myself tight -

Envisioning, imagining,

Your delicate blaze around me.

As the needle plunged my veins.

As I struggled with consciousness.

[lifeanditsquirks]

Got my blood work done for the doctor and got some of my results back. From what I understand, I have a lot of inflammation in my body. Which, duh. But it's cool to have something say that for me.

Lyme came back negative.

RA came back negative.

I am still waiting for the ANA screening to come back, which my med nurse this morning said it could take a couple of weeks because it needs to go through specialized testing.

Anyways I'm just excited that there is proof I'm feeling this way.

[creatively-storm]

I hate going to get bloodwork, but I do like the bandaids the local place gives me 😤

[eraofelizabeth]

i’m so spying on u

[strawbrrycuteblog]

GUYS I JUST GOT BLOOD WORK DONE!!

AND I DIDNT CRY!

[ennanena]

Bl00d work...

[unfilteredrealities]

Yesterday I was at the Diagnostic Center to get blood work done. So I left at 7:27am and my appointment was at 7:30am, then I had to wait a while at the reception till I got all the papers and signed shit , ofc it wasn’t my turn for a looong while even if I had an appointment, then I had to wait for other 4 people to get their blood taken. Then finally at like 8:30am it was my turn and they had to try 3 times to get my blood bcs I apparently didn’t drink enough water but idk I knew I am supposed to come to blood work on an empty stomach and no drinking fluids based.

Oh well. So now I have a bruise on my left arm on the opposite site where they poked me , then luckily no bruise on my right arm but there they tried as well on my hand back and now I have pain there and my hand tingles from time to time gg.

Hope to god it was worthwhile and my blood work flags shit and I have answers.

[bihansthot]

Holy shit my kidney numbers improved by 8 whole points in three months they went from stage 3b failure to 3a failure, that’s fantastic! I’m incredibly happy. My tacro level is also where it should be. Wins all around!

[wanderingmind867]

I'm nervous for today. I have to get bloodwork later, which is just incredibly stressful to think about. I hope the numbing agent they give me works, I hope the pain is minimal and I hope it doesn't take any longer than around 1 minute. If it goes loner or hurts a lot, I'm going to probably end up upset and stressed. And I'll never want to do this again. So we have to hope it goes well. Also, I might have lunch with my dad and his co-workers, but that's not stressing me out like the bloodwork is.

[synsick]

ph Sick Syn

[abybweisse]

Today I ordered a used hardback copy of the Blood Work book that Yana-san once referred to on her old tuna.be blog.

[brisingr-sword]

going to melt myself it took a whole week for my pre-t bloodwork to get back and now i find out they did something wrong and i need to give them my blood AGAIN??? it took them THREE TRIES to take my blood the first time. i am so frustrated i want testosterone in my blood asap

[giraffe-showbiz]

If someone told you that they are excited about a new mobility aid, specialist referral, or a test result that came back indicative of a problem

put your ableism aside and celebrate with them. Be excited and find joy in their life with them. Unpack your trepidations later by yourself, just let them have the moment.

[stefanmikaleson1864]

I truly need to stop reading my bloodwork before I talk to my doctor because I keep googling what they mean and what my numbers mean and I'm legit having a panic attack right now because according to google i'm dying :( It should be illegal for us to access it before a doctor

[seth-shitposts]

Lmaooo

Thing that just happened:

My aunt and her bf: *talking boutique something, I'm not paying attention*

My aunt, to us: you don't like [medicine] shots, right?

Me (Alex): I don't have a problem with them.

Me: oh! My favourite, however is when they do blood work.

My aunt: huh?

Me, explaining: yeah, I get to watch the bl-

My aunt: AUH. NOPE.