Blood

Blood was an essential fluid of many life forms, Gallifreyans and humans included.

Blood in a fuel tank aboard the Hydrax. (TV: State of Decay)

Human blood, which was red, was divided into two types of blood cells, red and white, with red containing iron. (TV: Bad Wolf)

Some people, like Chief Steward Weeks, didn't enjoy the sight of blood. (AUDIO: Storm Warning)

Sleep dust contained, among other things, blood cells. (TV: Sleep No More)

Significance

Food and drink

Some organisms consumed blood in order to survive, namely vampires, (TV: State of Decay) Haemovores (TV: The Curse of Fenric) and Plasmavores. (TV: Smith and Jones)

The Three Who Rule would only drink the blood of the living. However, they killed villagers and used tubing to store their blood in the fuel tanks of the Hydrax. This was then fed to the King Vampire. (TV: State of Decay)

On their home planet, the Ogri subsisted on amino acids, but found that the blood of Earth life forms, including humans, would also suffice. This led to human sacrifices at Stonehedge. (TV: The Stones of Blood)

Other species, such as Vortisaurs (AUDIO: Storm Warning) and Androgums, (TV: The Two Doctors) did not subsist off of blood exclusively, but would consume it as part of a more varied diet. While stranded in four-dimensional space, the Eighth Doctor claimed that Vortisaurs could smell the space-time in his Time Lord blood. (AUDIO: Storm Warning)

As Vastra herself implied, she would drink human blood as a refreshment, calling it "the colour of red wine". (TV: The Snowmen)

At least one Osiran, Sekhmet, enjoyed feasting on blood. (AUDIO: The Bride of Peladon)

Practical use

The magic potion Lady Peinforte made to travel in time required human blood. (TV: Silver Nemesis)

Some species, including the Sycorax, used a form of hypnosis known as blood control. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)

Blood could be transferred to another by the process of blood transfusion. The Eighth Doctor once gave blood to his fourth incarnation via this process. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

Mortimus used the blood of five species whose destinies the Time Lords had affected in a ritual to summon Artemis, the Chronovore. (PROSE: No Future)

Blood also formed an important part of some Faction Paradox rituals. Sometimes biodata would be extracted from the blood of a being to use in a Faction Rite or Ritual. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

Judoon scanners checked blood to gather information on the unit's species. (TV: Smith and Jones)

In 2011, Jack Harkness's immortal blood was used by the Three Families to cause Miracle Day, by inserting it into both ends of the Blessing simultaneously. Later that year, the Miracle was stopped when Jack, now mortal because of Miracle Day, inserted his blood into one end of the Blessing at Shanghai, while Rex Matheson, who had a transfusion of Jack's mortal blood, inserted it into the other end in Buenos Aires. (TV: The Blood Line)

As a failsafe, Sekhmet's trisilicate prison was blood locked. The lock required the blood of four royal women to properly release Sekhmet. (AUDIO: The Bride of Peladon)

When trapped in 1941 and trying to send a message to her 21st century Torchwood Three team, Toshiko Sato cut her hand with a sharp edge of a can, and wrote on paper with her blood. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)

The Twelfth Doctor had a gizmo able to take a sample and examine outrigh a specimen of human blood. He administered such a test on Alan-a-Dale, a human from the 12th century, and made a prognosis of several diseases and about six months of life expectancy. (TV: Robot of Sherwood)

Blood types

On at least Earth, blood was organised into different types. A-positive was the most common type, with one third of humanity in 2006 being A-positive. This was exploited by the Sycorax, who used a sample of A-positive blood in Guinevere One to hypnotise all A-positives via blood control. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)

Charley Pollard's blood type was AB-negative. (AUDIO: Absolution) According to Dr Lomax, the Third Doctor's blood had a blood type unidentifiable as human blood, as shown by its platelet stickiness. (TV: Spearhead from Space)