One of the four founders of Cleveland Clinic, George Crile was the first surgeon to perform a successful direct blood transfusion.
Crile graduated from Wooster Medical College, a predecessor institution of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and went on to lead the Lakeside Unit, or U.S. Army Base Hospital No. 4—the first of U.S. expeditionary forces to be sent to Europe after the U.S. entered World War I.
