author
Bernard Fantus
1874–1940
Best remembered as the physician who helped launch the first hospital blood bank in the United States, he turned practical medical problems into lasting advances. His work in Chicago linked bedside care, teaching, and pharmacology in ways that reached far beyond his own era.
1 Audiobook
Candy Medication
by Bernard Fantus
About the author
Born in Budapest in 1874, he emigrated to the United States as a teenager and later earned his M.D. from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1899. He built his career in Chicago, where he became known for his work in therapeutics and for teaching generations of medical students.
His most famous achievement came in 1937 at Cook County Hospital, where he established the first hospital blood bank in the United States. He is also widely credited with helping popularize the term "blood bank," and his ideas played an important role in making stored blood available for emergency care.
Fantus died in 1940, but his influence on transfusion medicine has lasted. He is remembered not only as a physician and teacher, but as a practical reformer whose work made modern hospital care safer and more effective.