The key steps in the evolution of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis have been reconstructed from an analysis of the molecular evolution of their constituents. The data suggest that the blood coagulation and complement cascades are descendants of an ancestral defence system that served the dual role of immobilization and destruction of invading bacteria and the prevention of loss of body fluids. The enzymes of the fibrinolytic, tissue-remodelling cascades form a distinct group, more closely related to the proteases of the digestive tract than to the components of the blood coagulation and complement cascades. Molecular evolution of these enzymes therefore suggests that they are descendants of an ancestral protease responsible for degradation of extracellular proteins. It is shown that the regulatory extensions of the proteases of the blood coagulation, fibrinolytic and complement cascades were assembled from domains borrowed from other proteins. Most non-protease components of these systems were also constructed by this evolutionary mechanism.