The first transfusion to a human was in 1667, when a young man received blood from a lamb. They did not know, then of the different types of blood (that was discovered in 1900), of course, but this one seems to have been successful.
“The extraordinary operation of taking blood from the veins of a man, and injecting it into those of a woman, was lately performed by Dr. Blundell, lecturer on midwifery, at Guy’s Hospital, upon a poor woman aged 25 years. She was, to all appearance, dying from loss of blood, after a severe labout, when Dr. Blundell (seeing the imminent danger of the case) laid bare one of the veins of her left arm, taking care to prevent the blood flowing from the orifice. The husband of the woman, who was a robust man, was then called in, and two ounces of blood taken from his arm into a glass tumbler; this blood was then, by means of a syringe, slowly thrown into the vein of the woman , in the direction of the heart, and the same quantity immediately after repeated. In about ten minutes the woman rallied, and gradually recovered from the jaws of death. The syringe was of brass, and well tinned; to the mouth a pipe was fixed, of about two inches long, and the size of a crow’s quill, shaped like a pen at the end, but with a blunt point. All air was carefully expelled from the syringe when used.”
The Stamford Mercury, 7th October, 1825.