“Rhesus Sensitization in the Bantue”: Technology, Medicine, and Race in South African Blood Research

South Africa presents an unusual example of a medical science community where human tissue research, organ transplantation, and related areas of science equaled or outstripped research and practice by peers in the north. The science of human tissue transfusion, transplantation and re-engineering, is a vast subject. The paper sets out the debate around “Rhesus sensitisation in the Bantu” as way into enduring struggles in South African human tissue science. The clinical and scientific protagonists were explicitly comparing white and black women's blood in South Africa in the period under review. This paper tunnels into the broader thematic using official records, published journal papers in medical journals of the day, interviews and newspapers. At the time discerning “the evidence” for clinical practice entangled scientists and a wider community of experts in genetic, evolutionary and ethical wrangles. From the inception of the (always political) processes of crafting a national blood service, and into the present day, where HIV and Hepatitis infection and their relation to blood products, as well as heated current constitutional and ethical debates about organ (especially kidney) transplants and blood banking science, the liniments of these early debates continue to lubricate biomedicine and public health practice and research. In debating the evidence for “Rhesus sensitisation in the Bantu” these contending and sometimes colluding areas of knowledge came into play as nascent national health authorities decided whether or not to screen and offer blood transfusions to women giving birth, whose health, and that of their infants, was at risk.