There is a bond that links all men and women in the world so closely and intimately that every difference of colour, religious belief and cultural heritage is insignificant beside it. Never varying in temperature more than five or six degrees, composed of 55 per cent water, the life stream of blood that runs in the veins of every member of the human race proves that the family of man is a reality.

Thousands of years ago man discovered that this fluid was vital to him and precious beyond price. The history of every people assigns to blood a unique importance. Folklore, religion and the history of dreams of perpetual youthfulness – of rejuvenation through ‘new blood’ – are filled with examples.

The ‘blood is the life’ says Deuteronomy (xii, 23). ‘For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you’ (Matthew xxvi, 28). Ancient Egyptians were said to bath in blood to refresh their powers and to anoint heads with oil and blood to treat greying and baldness. Ovid describes how Aeson recovered his youthfulness after drinking the blood of his son, Jason. The Romans were said to have drunk the blood of dying gladiators to imbue them with courage. More recently, it has been alleged that certain tribes of Central Australia give to sick old men the blood of young men to drink. Kublai Khan, expressing a widespread belief that the soul is in the blood, refused to allow the spilling of royal blood. Throughout South America the most popular method of driving out a bad spirit was by venesection in the belief that the demons escaped with the blood. Blood brother ceremonies in various countries of the world still fulfil functions of reconciliation and other social purposes while blood feuds – blood being repaid with blood – represented a powerful institution in medieval Europe and form part of conventions in some societies today.

For centuries then in all cultures and societies, blood has been regarded as a vital, and often magical, life-sustaining fluid, marking all important events in life, marriage, birth, initiation and death, and its loss has been associated with disgrace, disgust, impotence, sickness and tragedy.