Interesting Facts 2.

Another couple points of interest from my research today.

1. In 1916 women were admitted as medical students into St Mary's Hospital, London in response to a dearth of male doctors during the first world war. This continued until 1925 when the medical school committee gave into a petition by the male students to stop talking in women...

... on the grounds that St Mary's rugby team was habitually losing the Hospital Rugby Cup.

2. June 14th is blood donor day. It is also Karl Landsteiner's birthday - who discovered blood groups, was born in Vienna, and died in New York. When he won the Nobel prize for his discovery, a friend went round to his apartment to congratulate him. He discovered the Landsteiners reading, oblivious to the radio or telephone. Dr Landsteiner had been told the news earlier that day but after that it had slipped from his mind so completely that he had neglected to tell his wife and son.

He retired in 1939 aged seventy-one...

...but went on to discover the Rh factor. He died of a heart attack with a pipette in his hand.

Dr Grump has a lot to say on both these points but at the moment I am keeping her tied up and gagged in the corner of our office.