Evidence...Venous blood is NOT blue!!

It's a perennial question - is venous (relatively deoxygenated) blood blue or not? People never tire of asking it, and you can see why: the veins and venules that we see through our skin do appear blue, don't they? This is only compounded by the penchant amongst illustrators of anatomy texts to draw the veins using... blue.

Sigh. My answer to it is here, but I thought I'd supplment it with an actual photograph, taken with my cell phone, of some blood I recently had to give to a patient. The blood was originally drawn from the venous pool of another patient (obviously) and its seal in the bag ensures that it can't get reoxygenated. And the colour of this blood, of course, isn't blue. It's a deep maroon.

Told you so.