Why is it called Bombay Blood, and how was it discovered? Dr Durgadas Kasbekar of CDFD Hyderabad has written a detailed and lucid article about it in the forthcoming issue of the journal Indian Journal of History of Science , and I give a short summary of it here. It was in 1952 that Drs. Y.M. Bhende, C.K. Deshpande and H.M. Bhatia of the Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College, Mumbai published a note in The Lancet (pp. 903-4, May 3, 1952) about two patients (X, a railway worker and Y, a stab wound victim) who needed blood transfusion. None of the blood types known until then worked for them. The moment their blood samples were mixed with any of the above types, the blood coagulated or clumped up. The doctor trio tried the blood of over 160 donors and found at last that one from Mr. Z, a resident of Bombay, suited the type of both patients X and Y. This donor blood type was then named by Dr. Bhende and others as the ‘Bombay Blood Type.’ Technically it is now termed the (hh) type of blood.