Reuben Ottenberg (1882 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

– 1959) was an American

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

haematologist Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...

, who served Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City with distinction for 50 years. He received his B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1902 and his M.D. degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons three years later. He published his groundbreaking paper on

blood transfusion Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but mo ...

before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In haemocompatibility tests, which he had started in 1907 he found out that patient antibodies against donor red cells could be harmful but not vice versa. This report led to the use of group O (“zero”) individuals as universal donors. In 1954 Ottenberg was the first to be awarded the ''

Karl Landsteiner Karl Landsteiner (; 14 June 1868 – 26 June 1943) was an Austrian-born American biologist, physician, and immunologist. He distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from ...

Award'' from the ''American Society of Blood Banks'' for "distinguished pioneering contributions to blood banking and hemotherapy."List of Karl Landsteiner Award recipients

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ottenberg, Reuben 1882 births 1959 deaths American hematologists Columbia University faculty Columbia University alumni