Alexis Carrel (June 28, 1873 – November 5, 1944) was a
FrenchFrench people can refer to:* The legal residents and citizens of France, regardless of ancestry. For a legal discussion, see French nationality law.* People whose ancestors lived in France or the area that later became France....
surgeon, biologist and eugenicist, who was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
in 1912. Alexis Carrel is also infamous for being a Nazi sympathiser, supporter and for his radical ideas on "forced euthanasia" of certain people in society.
Biography
Born in
Sainte-Foy-lès-LyonSainte-Foy-lès-Lyon is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France.It is a suburb of the city of Lyon, and is located to its north-northeast. It is thus a component of the metropolitan Urban Community of Lyon....
, Rhône, Carrel received his medical degree from Université de Lyon, and practiced in France and in the United States at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
and the
Rockefeller Institute for Medical ResearchThe Rockefeller University is a private university which focuses primarily on basic research in the biomedical fields and offers graduate and postgraduate education. It is located between 63rd and 68th Streets along York Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York...
. He developed new techniques in
vascularThe blood vessels are the part of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the body. There are three major types of blood vessels: the arteries, which carry the blood away from the heart, the capillaries, which enable the actual exchange of water and chemicals between the blood and...
sutures and was a pioneer in transplantology and
thoracic surgeryThoracic surgery is the field of medicine involved in the surgical treatment of diseases affecting organs inside the thorax . Generally treatment of conditions of the lungs, chest wall, and diaphragm....
. Alexis Carrel was also a member of learned societies in the U.S., Spain, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Vatican City, Germany, Italy and Greece and received honorary doctorates from Queen's University of Belfast,
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
, California, New York,
Brown UniversityBrown University is a private university located in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III...
and
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
. He collaborated with American physician
Charles Claude GuthrieCharles Claude Guthrie was an American physiologist. He was born at Gilmore, St. Charles Co., Mo., and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1901 and from the University of Chicago in 1908; taught physiology while engaged in advanced studies, and was professor of physiology and...
in work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs as well as the
headA head transplant is a surgical operation involving the grafting of an organism's head onto the body of another. It should not be confused with another, hypothetical, surgical operation, the brain transplant. Head transplantation inevitably involves decapitating the patient...
, and Carrel was awarded the 1912
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
for these efforts. Due to his close proximity with
Jacques DoriotJacques Doriot was a French politician prior to and during World War II. He began as a Communist but then turned Fascist.-Early life and politics:...
's fascist
Parti Populaire FrançaisThe Parti Populaire Français was a fascist political party led by Jacques Doriot before and during World War II...
(PPF) during the 1930s and his role in implementing eugenics policies during Vichy France, he was accused after the Liberation of collaborationism, but died before the trial.
Wound Antisepsis
During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
(1914-1918), Carrel and the English chemist
Henry Drysdale DakinHenry Drysdale Dakin was an English chemist.He was born in London as the youngest of 8 children to a family of steel merchants from Leeds. As a school boy he did water analysis with the Leeds City Analyst. He studied chemistry at the University of Leeds with Julius B...
developed the Carrel-Dakin method of treating wounds based on chlorine (Dakin's solution) which, preceding the development of antibiotics, was a major medical advance in the care of traumatic wounds. For this, Carrel was awarded the
Légion d'honneurThe Légion d'honneur or Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
.
Organ transplants
Carrel co-authored a book with famed pilot Charles A. Lindbergh,
The Culture of Organs, and worked with Lindbergh in the mid-1930s to create the "perfusion pump," which allowed living organs to exist outside of the body during surgery. The advance is said to have been a crucial step in the development of open-heart surgery and organ transplants, and to have laid the groundwork for the
artificial heartAn artificial heart is a mechanical device that is implanted into the body to replace the biological heart.The term “artificial heart” has often inaccurately been used to describe ventricular assist devices , which are pumps that assist the heart but do not replace it.An artificial heart is also...
, which became a reality decades later. Some critics of Lindbergh claimed that Carrel overstated Lindbergh's role to gain media attention, but other sources say Lindbergh played an important role in developing the device. Both Lindbergh and Carrel appeared on the cover of
Time magazineTime is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
on June 13, 1938.
Cellular senescence
Carrel was also interested in the phenomenon of
senescenceSenescence refers to the biological changes which take place in organisms as they age. It encompasses all of the biological processes of a living organism's approaching an advanced age...
, or aging. He claimed that all cells continued to grow indefinitely, and this became a dominant view in the early twentieth century. Carrel was especially famous for an experiment begun on January 17, 1912. To defend his idea, Carrel placed tissue cultured from an
embryoAn embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
nic chicken heart in a stoppered
PyrexPyrex is a brand name for glassware, introduced by Corning Incorporated in 1915. According to Carroll Gantz, Dr. Jesse Littleton of Corning discovered its cooking potential by presenting his wife with a makeshift casserole made from a cut down Nonex battery jar...
flask of his own design, and maintained the living culture for over 20 years with regular supplies of nutrient. This was longer than a chicken's normal lifespan. The experiment, which was conducted at the
Rockefeller Institute for Medical ResearchThe Rockefeller University is a private university which focuses primarily on basic research in the biomedical fields and offers graduate and postgraduate education. It is located between 63rd and 68th Streets along York Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York...
, attracted considerable popular and scientific attention.
Carrel's famous experiment was never fully replicated (although other researchers obtained mutated "immortal" strains), and in the 1960s research by
Leonard HayflickLeonard Hayflick , Ph.D., is Professor of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, and was Professor of Medical Microbiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a past president of the Gerontological Society of America and was a founding member of the...
and Paul Moorhead proposed that earlier researchers were wrong, and that
differentiated cellsIn developmental biology, cellular differentiation is the process by which a less specialized cell becomes a more specialized cell type. Differentiation occurs numerous times during the development of a multicellular organism as the organism changes from a single zygote to a complex system of...
can only undergo a limited number of divisions before dying. This is known as the
Hayflick limitThe Hayflick limit is the number of times a normal cell population will divide before it stops, presumably because the telomeres reach a critical length.-Overview:...
, and is now a pillar of biology.
It is not certain how Carrel obtained his anomalous results.
Leonard HayflickLeonard Hayflick , Ph.D., is Professor of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, and was Professor of Medical Microbiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a past president of the Gerontological Society of America and was a founding member of the...
suggests that the daily feeding of nutrient was continually introducing new living cells to the alleged immortal culture. J. A. Witkowski has argued that, while "immortal" strains of visibly mutated cells have been obtained by other experimenters, a more likely explanation is deliberate introduction of new cells into the culture, possibly without Carrel's knowledge.
Honors
In 1972, the Swedish Post Office honored Carrel with a stamp that was part of its Nobel stamp series. In 1979, the lunar crater
CarrelCarrel is a small lunar crater on the Mare Tranquillitatis. It has a somewhat distorted appearance, having a slight protruding bulge in the northwest rim. The interior is somewhat irregular, with ridges and some slumped material...
was named after him as a tribute to his scientific breakthroughs.
In February 2002 the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston, within the celebrations for the Lindbergh 100th birthday established the Lindbergh-Carrel Prize, given to major contributors to "development of perfusion and bioreactor technologies for organ preservation and growth". M. E. DeBakey and 9 other scientists received the prize, a bronze statuette espressly created for the event by the Italian artist C. Zoli and named "Elisabeth" after Elisabeth Morrow, sister of Lindbergh's wife Anne Morrow, died due to heart disease. Lindbergh in fact was disappointed that contemporary medical technology could not provide an artificial heart pump which would allow for heart surgery on her and that gave the occasion for the first contact between Carrel and Lindbergh.
Man, The Unknown (1935)
In 1935, Carrel published a best-selling book titled
L'Homme, cet inconnu (
Man, The Unknown) which advocated, in part, that mankind could better itself by following the guidance of an elite group of intellectuals, and by implementing a regime of enforced
eugenicsEugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species. Widely popular in the early decades of the 20th century, after having become associated with the Holocaust, it has largely fallen into disrepute.- Overview :As a social movement...
. Carrel claimed the existence of a "hereditary biological aristocracy" and argued that
"deviant" human types should be suppressed using techniques similar to those
later employed by the Nazis.
"A euthanasia establishment, equipped with a suitable gas, would allow the humanitarian and economic disposal of those who have killed, committed armed robbery, kidnapped children, robbed the poor or seriously betrayed public confidence," Carrel wrote in
L'Homme, cet Inconnu. "Would the same system not be appropriate for lunatics who have committed criminal acts?" he suggested.
The French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems
In 1937, Carrel joined Jean Coutrot’s
Centre d’Etudes des Problèmes Humains - Coutrot’s aim was to develop what he called an "economic humanism" through "collective thinking." In 1941, through connections to the cabinet of
Vichy FranceVichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government, which succeeded the Third Republic, officially called itself the French State , in contrast with the previous designation, "French Republic." Marshal...
president
Philippe PétainHenri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
(specifically, French industrial physicians André Gros and Jacques Ménétrier) he went on to advocate for the creation of the
Fondation Française pour l’Etude des Problèmes Humains (French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems) which was created by
decreeA decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures . It has the force of law...
of the Vichy regime in 1941, and where he served as 'regent'. The foundation was at the origin of the October 11, 1946 law, enacted by the
Provisional Government of the French RepublicThe Provisional Government of the French Republic was an interim government which governed France from 1944 to 1946, following the fall of Vichy France and prior to the Fourth French Republic....
(GPRF), which institutionalized the field of occupational medicine. It worked on
demographicsDemographics or demographic data are selected population characteristics as used in government, marketing or opinion research, or the demographic profiles used in such research...
(Robert Gessain, Paul Vincent, Jean Bourgeois-Pichat), on
economicsEconomics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, (
François PerrouxFrançois Perroux was a French economist. He was named Professor at the Collège de France, after having taught at the University of Lyon and the University of Paris...
), on
nutritionNutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
(Jean Sutter), on habitation (Jean Merlet) and on the first
opinion pollAn opinion poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals....
s (Jean Stoetzel). "The foundation was chartered as a public institution under the joint supervision of the ministries of finance and public health. It was given financial autonomy and a budget of forty million francs—roughly one franc per inhabitant—a true luxury considering the burdens imposed by the German Occupation on the nation’s resources. By way of comparison, the whole
Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueThe National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....
(CNRS) was given a budget of fifty million francs."
According to Gwen Terrenoire, writing in
Eugenics in France (1913-1941) : a review of research findings, "The foundation was a pluridisciplinary centre that employed around 300 researchers (mainly statisticians, psychologists, physicians) from the summer of 1942 to the end of the autumn of 1944. After the
liberation of ParisThe Liberation of Paris took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on the 25th and is accounted as the last battle in the Campaign for Normandy and the transitional conclusion of the Allied invasion breakout in Operation Overlord into a...
, Carrel was suspended by the Minister of Health; he died in November 1944, but the Foundation itself was "purged", only to reappear in a short time as the Institut national d’études démographiques (INED) that is still active." Although Carrel himself died on November 5, 1944, most members of his team did move to the INED, which was led by famous demographist
Alfred SauvyAlfred Sauvy was a demographer, anthropologist and historian of the French economy. Sauvy coined the term Third World in reference to the underdeveloped countries in an article published in the French magazine L'Observateur on August 14, 1952...
, who coined the expression "
Third WorldThe term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned or neutral with either capitalism and NATO or communism and the Soviet Union...
". Others joined
Robert DebréRobert Debré was a French physician of note.He gave his name to the most important .A member of the Académie de Médecine, he was a colleague and close friend of professors Jean Quenu and Albert Besson....
's "Institut national d'hygiène" (National Hygiene Institute), which later became the INSERM.
Alexis Carrel and Lourdes
Alexis Carrel went from being a skeptic of the visions and miracles reported at
LourdesLourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes that are reported to have occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...
to being a believer after experiencing a healing he could not explain. To the detriment of his career and reputation among his fellow doctors, he steadfastly reiterated his beliefs, and even wrote a book describing his experience.
External links
Sources
- Carrel, Alexis. Man, The Unknown. New York and London: Harper and Brothers. 1935.
- Feuerwerker, Elie. Alexis Carrel et l'eugénisme. Le Monde, 1er Juillet 1986.
- Andrés Horacio Reggiani. Alexis Carrel, the Unknown: Eugenics and Population Research under Vichy (FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES 25:2 SPRING 2002)
- Wallace, Max. The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich St. Martin's Press, New York, 2003.
- Szasz, Thomas
Thomas Stephen Szasz ; born April 15, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary) is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990 he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York...
. The Theology of Medicine New York: Syracuse University Press, 1977.
- Ali, Tariq
Tariq Ali is a British-Pakistani historian, novelist, filmmaker, political campaigner, and commentator. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and regularly contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.He is the author of...
. Clash of Fundamentalisms Verso, London, 2002
- Choueiri, Youssef. Islamic Fundamentalism Continuum International Publishing Group, London, 2002.
- Walther, Rudolph. Die seltsamen Lehren des Doktor Carrel, DIE ZEIT 31.07.2003 Nr.32
- Bonnafé, Lucien and Tort, Patrick. L'Homme, cet inconnu? Alexis Carrel, Jean-Marie le Pen et les chambres a gaz Editions Syllepse, 1996. ISBN 2907993143
- Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim M. Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence, SUNY Press, Albany, 1996
- Azmeh, Aziz (Aziz Al-Azmeh
Professor Aziz Al-Azmeh B.A. Hons. , M.A., D.Phil. was born in Damascus, Syria. He received a D.Phil. in Oriental Studies from St Anthony's College, University of Oxford , having previously attended the University of Tübingen, and the University of Pennsylvania...
). Islams and Modernities Verso, London, 1993.
- Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism W. W. Norton, 2003
- David Zane Mairowitz
David Zane Mairowitz , is a writer. He studied English Literature and Philosophy at Hunter College, New York, and Drama at the University of California, Berkeley.In 1966 he emigrated to England, where he worked as a freelance writer...
. "Fascism à la mode: in France, the far right presses for national purity", Harper's Magazine; 10/1/1997
- Pioneers of Islamic Revival (edited by Ali Rahnema), Zed Books, London 1994
- Schneider, William. Quality and Quantity: The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth-Century France, Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine (chap. 7 French eugenics in the thirties; and 10 Vichy and after)
- Terrenoire, Gwen, CNRS. Eugenics in France (1913-1941) : a review of research findings Joint Programmatic Commission UNESCO-ONG Science and Ethics, March 24, 2003