disasteraceae

so in Dracula there's one character who becomes Dracula's uuuuhhhh coffee machine so to speak. obviously she suffers blood loss which greatly concerns the two doctors taking care of her. all together they give her four blood transfusions. now, the book takes place sometime in the 1890s

**1884** Saline infusion replaces milk as a “blood substitute” due to the increased frequency of adverse reactions to milk.

**1900** Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian physician, discovers the first three human blood groups, A, B, and C. Blood type C was later changed to O. His colleagues Alfred Decastello and Adriano Sturli add AB, the fourth type, in 1902. Landsteiner receives the Nobel Prize for Medicine for this discovery in 1930.

**1939/40** The Rh blood group system is discovered by Karl Landsteiner, Alex Wiener, Philip Levine, and R.E. Stetson and is soon recognized as the cause of the majority of transfusion reactions. Identification of the Rh factor takes its place next to the discovery of ABO as one of the most important breakthroughs in the field of blood banking.

source:

blood transfusion was known for centuries to be a dangerous procedure, rarely attempted and often failed

now, let's assume some things about the blood types of our blood receiver & blood donors based on NHS statistics

the only explanation I have for why she didn't have a negative reaction after any of the 4 blood transfusions is as follows:

she's part of the 30% that has A positive blood type, so she can receive A positive, O positive, and O negative blood, which adds up to being able to receive blood from a whopping 78% of the UK population

still, it's weird that her doctors were like YESSSS HER BF WILL GIVE HER HIS BLOOD (HOW ROMANTIC!) AND THEN WE SHALL DO SO ALSO (LET'S NOT THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS) without any consideration of the risks when saline solution was already invented

an additional possible explanation that involves more major spoilers is that