The history of platelet function studies has begun relatively recently, at the end of the 19th century. Although humanity has treated blood with reverence since ancient times, attributing supernatural powers to it. Initially, people believed that blood can influence person’s character, for example, dark blood contains harmful substances which are need to be disposed of by bloodletting.

There is a rational grain in this thought, but the implementation method entails serious side effects. As time were passing by, the interest grew bigger. With the invention of optical devices, researchers have seen that blood can be divided into components. Thus began the history of the formed elements of blood. The first were erythrocytes, but then the rest did not hide from the tenacious eyes of researchers. Various functions were attributed to shaped elements, some of the functions were proved later, some were refuted. Now, in modern times, we still do not know all the functions. As for platelets, their eras of research can be divided into an initial "descriptive period" extending from about 1880-1960, during which many of the classic clinical features of platelet disorders were described in detail; the subsequent "mechanistic period", covering the last 50 years, made possible by the introduction of biochemical, cellular-biological, molecular-biological and, more recently, structural-biological, genomic and computational methods.