Red-Haired Ash Reads

Blood is not something that I ever thought I would be interested in learning more about but Rose George really made this a fascinating topic. This book takes us through history by talking about the use of blood in medicine, like leeches and transfusions; to blood donation, menstruation, HIV/AIDs, hemophilia, vampirism, and quite a few other topics. 

Each chapter in this book covers a different topic about blood. I found the sections about blood donation, hemophilia, and menstruation to be most interesting because they were areas’ that I didn’t have a lot of information on to begin with. I found the blood donation chapter to be the most interesting out of this book because I knew nothing about it before reading this. Learning about Janet Vaughan’s contribution to donation during the war and her continued fight afterwards was just fascinating. Also, the menstruation chapter made me so angry because of the way cultures around the world handle menstruation and use it to punish/demean women. 

For a whole book about blood, I surprisingly didn’t get squeamish about any of it except the leeches. Leeches have always bothered me so learning all about how they were used in medicine grossed me out but I can also understand how they were also useful. 

Overall, this was a fascinating and informative look at blood and how it shapes our lives but it did have some issues. My biggest issue was that it felt repetitive at times and that some questionable/wrong statements were made, i.e. the Tuskegee study being “voluntary.” Also, the way she talks about other countries is not great at times. 

TW: graphic depictions of blood, leeches; rape discussed; HIV/AIDs epidemic; HIV/AIDs phobia; authors racist and colonist views felt at times;

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