The red cell has been a focus for scientific and medical investigation since the ear liest times. A higher erythrocyte sedimentation rate was associated with diseases (usually pyrexias) before the thermometer was invented. Furthermore, ever since the early observers Swammerdam and Leeuvenhoek saw discrete corpuscles in samples of blood using the first microscopes, there has been a significant scientific interest in the structure and function of red blood cells. The later discovery that red cells were not spherical, but biconcave discs introduced a scientific puzzle which is still not...