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 1888
 1974
 American
 physician
Lester J. Unger was born in New York City in 1888 and spent his career there. A bout of unrecognized infectious mononucleosis at the end of medical school started Unger into the study of the blood. He graduated a member of Alpha Omega Alpha from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1913.
Unger was a well-known physician who while a house officer in 1915 at Mount Sinai Hospital devised a transfusion apparatus that simplified direct blood transfusion. In this paper, he described the method:
The instrument I have devised eliminates the causes of the difficulties experienced in the syringe-cannula method. Fundamentally, it is a stop-cock, which alternately connects a syringe for blood to the donor and at the same time a syringe with saline to the recipient; then by turning the cock the syringe with blood is immediately connected to the recipient and the syringe with saline to the donor. (JAMA 1915, v.64, p.582)
Unger's method was announced the same year that Richard Lewisohn, also at Mount Sinai Hospital, published his pioneering work on the citrate method for indirect blood transfusion. Although Lewisohn's work proved to be the way of the future, many institutions, including Mount Sinai, continued to use Unger's method for many years due to the lower incidence of post-infusion chills with the direct method.
Unger was an active member of many professional associations and authored well over 50 articles over his career. He died in April 1974.
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