The Cagots were a persecuted and despised minority found in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Aragón, Gascony and Brittany. Their name has differed by province and the local dialect: Cagots, Gézitains, Gahets, and Gafets in Gascony; Agotes, Agotac, and Gafos in Basque country; Capots in Anjou and Languedoc; and Cacons, Cahets, Caqueux, and Caquins in Brittany. Evidence of the group exists back as far as AD 1000.

Cagots were shunned and hated. They were required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were excluded from all political and social rights. They were only allowed to enter a church by a special door, and during the service a rail separated them from the other worshipers. Either they were altogether forbidden to partake of the sacrament, or the Eucharist was given to them on the end of a wooden spoon, while a holy water stoup was reserved for their exclusive use. They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress, to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called "Canards"). So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.

Dr. Bhupen Hazarika (Assamese:ড: ভূপেন হাজৰিকা) (1926–2011) was an Indian lyricist, musician, singer, poet and film-maker from Assam. He belonged to Dom, the untouchable caste. His songs, written and sung mainly in the Assamese language by himself, are marked by humanity and universal brotherhood; and have been translated and sung in many languages, most notable in Bengali, and Hindi. Known for writing bold lyrics with themes of communal amity, universal justice and empathy, his songs have become popular among all sections of ethnic and religious communities in Assam, besides West Bengal and Bangladesh. He is acknowledged widely in the Hindi film industry for introducing Hindi film to the sounds and folk music of Assam and Northeast India. He received the National Film Award for Best Music Direction in the year 1975. Winner of Padmashri (1997), Padmabhushan (2001), Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1987), Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (2008) and the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award in the year 1992, Dr. Hazarika was posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award in the year 2012. The Government of Assam honoured him with the title Asom Ratna, the highest Civilian Award in the state of Assam. Dr. Hazarika also held the position of the Chairman of the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi from December 1998 to December 2003.

Luis Agote (September 22, 1868 – November 12, 1954) was an Argentine physician and researcher. He was one of the first to perform a non-direct blood transfusion using sodium citrate as an anticoagulant (the Belgian doctor Albert Hustin, working independently, was the second one to do so). The procedure took place in Rawson hospital in the city of Buenos Aires on November 9, 1914.

He studied first in the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, and then at the University of Buenos Aires, where he was also a teacher. He graduated as a doctor in 1893 with a thesis about hepatitis supurada. He became Secretary of the National Department of Hygiene in 1894 and became head of the leper hospital in 1895 on the island of Martin Garcia. He was elected Deputy in 1910 and Senator in 1916 of the legislature in Argentina.

The first recorded blood transfusion was made between dogs by the English doctor Richard Lower around 1666. In 1667, the French scientist Juan Bautista Denys made a transfusion to a human using animal blood. In 1900, Karl Landsteiner identified some of the blood substances responsible for the agglutination of red blood cells, identifying blood groups for the first time and some of their incompatibilities.