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The Milk Transfusion Era

  • Writer: FibonacciMD
    FibonacciMD
  • Apr 3
  • 4 min read

Updated: Apr 13

When Milk was Infused into Ill Patients

Discover the bizarre history of milk transfusions, a 19th-century medical practice used to treat cholera and blood loss before the rise of saline and blood typing.

milk transfusions


While blood transfusions from animals to humans were specifically banned in France in 1668 (see the “Transfusion Affair” article), in 1825, James Blundell performed the first documented human-to-human blood transfusion in Europe.  This procedure was practiced for over 50 years, mostly in England, with poor results at times. 


One issue was preventing the blood from coagulating.  Another was that many of the subjects of uncrossed-matched blood transfusions suffered from incompatibility reactions as the concept of different blood types was not discovered until 1901.  As the numbers of adverse reactions increased, human blood transfusions fell somewhat into disrepute and were rarely performed in the late 1800s. 


Substitutes for blood transfusion for ill patients were sought and this brought about an era of popularity for milk transfusions.  It was thought that the fatty particles in milk were converted to white blood cells by the body and later turned into red blood cells.  


The first documented intravenous injections of milk to treat humans was performed in 1854, in Toronto, Canada, by Drs. James Bovell and Edwin Hodder during a cholera epidemic.  Their first patient was a 40-year-old man who markedly improved after injection of 12 ounces of warmed cow’s milk, which came from a cow that had been brought to the hospital.  A second patient also had good results.  However, five other patients who later got the milk transfusions died, but the doctors still wanted to continue the practice.  Dr. Hodder later noted: “Dr. Bovell and myself then applied to the corporation (of the city of Toronto) for a good cow, and a few articles indispensable for the comfort and well-being of the patient; these were refused, and we thereupon sent in our resignation.”


Milk transfusions were not performed again until 1873 when Dr. Joseph Howe in New York City transfused goat’s milk into a tuberculosis patient.  The patient immediately suffered vertiginous dizziness after two treatments with 1.5 ounces of intravenous milk.  He died the next day.  Howe tried milk transfusion on another tuberculosis patient who also suffered vertigo, as well as back pain and shortness of breath.  He died four hours after the procedure.  Howe performed the procedure a third time in 1878 in front of colleagues at New York Charity Hospital.  After an infusion of four ounces of goat's milk the woman's condition appeared to have improved.  


The most ardent U.S. supporter of milk transfusions was Dr. T. G. Thomas, a New York City gynecologist.  In 1875, he transfused cow’s milk into a woman with a uterine hemorrhage.  After six ounces of milk were administered, she “complained that her head felt like bursting.” She developed a rapid heart rate and fever, but she improved over the next week.  During the next three years he transfused another seven patients with milk and authored an article supporting the practice.  Thomas believed that blood transfusions were problematic due to the blood coagulating and that milk was similar in composition to chyle (lymphatic fluid).  He predicted a “brilliant and useful future for intravenous lacteal injection and wrote, “The injection of milk into the circulation in place of blood is a perfectly feasible, safe, and legitimate procedure.”


More doctors in the U.S. and England started performing milk transfusion procedures on their patients.  In 1878, a Dr. Brinton from New York wrote that, ‘‘I think that this procedure will, in a few years, entirely supersede the transfusion of blood.”


milk transfusions in 1892
Transfusion de sang de chèvre (transfusion of goat’s blood)-1892

By 1879, medical opinion was starting to change.  French doctors Moutard-Martin and Richet wrote “its injection is a useless and dangerous operation and one which should be absolutely proscribed.”  A Dr. Helmuth, in the U.S., concluded that milk transfusion was much more dangerous than blood transfusion.

In 1880, Dr. Howe, who had first experimented with milk infusions seven years prior, trialed a human breast milk infusion on a woman with a lung infection.  After two ounces were administered the woman stopped breathing but was resuscitated.  At that point Howe concluded that milk infusions, regardless of the source, were unsuccessful treatments. 


By 1880, the procedure of milk infusion had fallen into disfavor, and it was finally abandoned as isotonic* saline solutions became available.  The safe transfusion of blood from human-to-human would wait until the beginning of the next century after blood types were discovered and typed and cross-matched blood became available.  


* (An isotonic solution contains approximately the same concentration of water and solutes as blood plasma causing no net movement of water in or out of cells.  Isotonic solutions used today include 0.9% normal saline and Lactated Ringer’s solution.) 


If you liked this article, you may also enjoy reading The History of Insulin and Type 1 Diabetes. 

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References

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