An Attempt to Determine the Blood Groups of Mummies

Abstract

The authors have shown previously1 that dried human muscle may be used to determine the blood group of the person from which it came. The extension of the study to mummified tissue suggested itself, as information which might be thus obtained would be of interest in connection with the problem of the origin of the human blood groups and might be of value to anthropologists and areheologists. The present paper is a preliminary report of this work.The technic was as described in the above reference. Anti-A and anti-B testing fluids, prepared by specific adsorption of immune rabbit sera, and also human sera of types B and A were used. These were adjusted in strength so that they agglutinated “+” at a dilution of 1: 4 and “±” at 1:8. About 0.3 ml. was placed on each sample of about 0.05 gm. of finely ground mummified tissue. After thorough mixing and standing overnight in the icebox, the supernatants were allowed to come to room temperature and tested against A and B erythrocytes. The results are given in Tab...