An Updated History of CBBS
"CBBS - The Early Challenges"

I would like to acknowledge up front that much of the information on which this talk is based came from the history of CBBS written in 1981 by Joe Hayhurst, whose picture appears below.

I also reviewed the histories written by each President from 1982 to 1996.

CBBS came into existence largely through the efforts of a single individual, Dr. John Upton (below).

Upton was a San Francisco obstetrician who was born in England. In 1940. with England under attack, he accepted an appointment as Medical Director for Northern California for the British War Relief. In 1941, Upton, together with DeWitt Birnham, persuaded the San Francisco Medical Society to sponsor a community blood bank for San Francisco and also to provide plasma for British War Relief.

Below is an early picture of staff at Irwin Memorial Blood Bank showing Birnham in the upper right hand corner.

Upton is on the left, with Curtis Smith next to him. Smith took over the blood bank when the two original founders went into the Navy. In the center is Bernice Hemphill who became Managing Director after joining Irwin in 1944. To the right of her is Bea Hayes, the first laboratory supervisor.

And here is the Irwin mansion where the blood bank had a room in the Medical Society basement.

As early as 1943 Upton suggested that the California Medical Association form a committee on blood banks to recognize those community blood banks then in existence and to promote new ones based on the same model. At that point, Irwin Memorial in San Francisco and Peninsula Blood Bank in San Mateo County were the only community blood banks in California.

It was not until 1948 that the CMA responded by authorizing a Committee on Blood Banks with Upton as its chair.

Concerned with territorial disputes and with Red Cross efforts to establish a single national blood program, the CMA Committee recommended that regional blood banks in California be under the authority of county medical societies. No-interest loans to establish such blood banks were offered.

In 1949, Bernice Hemphill (below) conceived of the idea of a blood Clearing House based on the model used by monetary banks, the idea being that blood could be exchanged back and forth without settling debts until the net amount owed was paid at stated intervals.