Lawrence Bruce Robertson

Lawrence Bruce Robertson was a Canadian surgeon who developed methods for and promoted the use of blood transfusions in battlefield surgery during World War I.[1]

Early life and education

Robertson studied medicine at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1909. He interned at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.[2]

Career

Robertson engaged in post-graduate training in Boston and New York, where he studied methods of blood transfusion at Bellevue Hospital,[3] during a time when the process was not widely accepted for use in surgery. He returned to Canada in 1913, and worked at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where he introduced the processes he had learned to other physicians. With the advent of war, Robertson enlisted in the armed forces in 1914.

In October 1915, Robertson used the syringe method of transfusion which he had learned in New York to perform a transfusion, providing blood to a patient suffering from shrapnel wounds. After four more successful transfusions over several months, he reported his results to Sir Walter Morley Fletcher, director of the Medical Research Committee.[4][5] In 1916 he wrote an article for the British Medical Journal detailing his results, titled "The Transfusion of Whole Blood: A Suggestion for More Frequent Employment in War Surgery".[6] This, along with improvements in the process developed by British physician Edward William Archibald, persuaded the British authorities to accept the practice of blood transfusion. In 1917 Robertson set up blood transfusion apparatus at Nomber 2 Casualty Clearing Station in France.[4][7]

Following the war, Robertson returned to Toronto. In 1920, he was an orthopedic surgeon at Davisville Military Hospital.[8]

Robertson died of pneumonia in 1923 at the age of 38.[9]

Personal

Robertson was married to Enid Gordon (née Finley) Graham, a massage/physical therapist. The couple had two children.[9]

References
  1. "BBC - Future - How one of history's bloodiest wars eventually saved lives". BBC, By Amanda Ruggeri 30 June 2016
  2. Linda Palfreeman (1 June 2015). Spain Bleeds: The Development of Battlefield Blood Transfusion During the Civil War. Sussex Academic Press. pp. 226–. ISBN 978-1-78284-250-7.
  3. Annales. College = Le College. 2002. pp. 369–370.
  4. "A Canadian kept blood flowing in WWI. An American got credit". Toronto Star. July 9, 2016. Katie Daubs
  5. Stansbury LG1, Hess JR. "Blood transfusion in World War I: the roles of Lawrence Bruce Robertson and Oswald Hope Robertson in the 'most important medical advance of the war'". Transfus Med Rev. 2009 Jul;23(3):232-6. doi: 10.1016/j.tmrv.2009.03.007.
  6. Roderick Stewart; Sharon Stewart (1 May 2011). Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune. MQUP. pp. 396–. ISBN 978-0-7735-8640-6.
  7. Kim Pelis (2001). "Taking Credit: The Canadian Army Medical Corps and the British Conversion to Blood Transfusion in WWI". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 56 (3): 238–277. doi:10.1093/jhmas/56.3.238. PMID 11552401.
  8. Canadian Medical Directory. R. Villecourt. 1920. p. 136.
  9. Edward Shorter (2013). Partnership for Excellence: Medicine at the University of Toronto and Academic Hospitals. University of Toronto Press. pp. 579–. ISBN 978-1-4426-4595-0.
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