酸素や栄養を運んで不要なものを排出し、侵入する病原菌に対抗する白血球を含む血液は、多くの動物にとって生命の維持に必要不可欠なものです。それゆえに、文化や宗教の中でも重要な意味合いを持ってきました。本書では、血液の組成・成分、そして輸血や血液検査、血液由来の病気などについて解説し、また人工血液の開発や幹細胞からの血液造成の可能性についても展望します。
   

• Offers a comprehensive exploration of blood's many uses in biology and medical sciences
• Explains how blood functions and the different components contained in blood
• Provides an insight into blood's fascinating historical role in culture and religion

    
Blood is vital to most animals. In mammals it transports oxygen and food, carries away waste, and contains the white cells that attack invading microbes. Playing a central role in life, it has had profound cultural and historical significance and plays an important role in religious ritual. Blood was one of the four humours in early Western medicine and is still probably the major diagnostic tool in the doctor's armoury. 

In this Very Short Introduction, Chris Cooper analyses the components of blood, explains blood groups, and looks at transfusions, blood tests, and blood-borne diseases. He considers what the future may hold, including the possibility of making artificial blood, and producing blood from stem cells in the laboratory.