A car crash on April 1, 1950, brought an abrupt end to the brilliant career of Dr. Charles Drew. Drew, an African- American physician and surgeon, gained notoriety for his techniques for processing and storing blood plasma for use in transfusions. Because of the existence of Blood Banks, accident victims are far less likely to bleed to death.
In 1941 Drew became director of an American Red Cross program for the U.S. armed forces, developing methods for using dried instead of liquid plasma. Disheartened by the military’s decision to store the blood of Caucasians and non-Caucasians separately, Drew resigned his post after only three months. He went on to become a professor of medicine at Howard University.
