Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1912

Alexis Carrel (28 June 1873 – 5 November 1944) was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. Like many intellectuals before World War II he promoted eugenics. He was a regent for the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems during Vichy France which implemented the eugenics policies there; his association with the Foundation led to investigations of collaborating with the Nazis but no conclusions were reached by the investigations. He faced constant media attacks towards the end of his life over his alleged involvement with the Nazis.

A prominent Nobel Prize laureate in 1912, Alexis Carrel was also elected twice, in 1924 and 1927, as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Biography

Born in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône, Carrel was raised in a devout Catholic family and was educated by Jesuits, though he had become an agnostic by the time he became a university student.[citation needed] He was a pioneer in transplantology and thoracic surgery. 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 University, California, New York, Brown University and Columbia University.

In 1902, he was claimed to have witnessed the miraculous cure of Marie Bailly at Lourdes, made famous in part because she named Carrel as a witness of her cure.[citation needed] After the notoriety surrounding the event, Carrel could not obtain a hospital appointment because of the pervasive anticlericalism in the French university system at the time. In 1903 he emigrated to Montreal, Canada, but soon relocated to Chicago, Illinois to work for Hull Laboratory. While there he collaborated with American physician Charles Claude Guthrie in work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs as well as the head, and Carrel was awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for these efforts.

In 1906 he joined the newly formed Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York where he spent the rest of his career.[8] In the 1930s, Carrel and Charles Lindbergh became close friends not only because of the years they worked together but also because they shared personal, political, and social views. Lindbergh initially sought out Carrel to see if his sister-in-law's heart, damaged by rheumatic fever, could be repaired. When Lindbergh saw the crudeness of Carrel's machinery, he offered to build new equipment for the scientist. Eventually they built the first perfusion pump, an invention instrumental to the development of organ transplantation and open heart surgery. Lindbergh considered Carrel his closest friend, and said he would preserve and promote Carrel's ideals after his death.

Due to his close proximity with Jacques Doriot's fascist Parti Populaire Français (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.

In his later life he returned to his Catholic roots. In 1939 he met with Trappist monk Alexis Presse on a recommendation. Though Carrel was skeptical about meeting with a priest.[9] Presse ended up having a profound influence on the rest of Carrel's life.[8] In 1942, he said "I believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul, in Revelation and in all the Catholic Church teaches." He summoned Presse to administer the Catholic Sacraments on his death bed in November 1944.

For much of his life, Carrel and his wife spent their summers on the Ile Saint-Gildas, which they owned. After he and Lindbergh became close friends, Carrel persuaded him to also buy a neighboring island, the Ile Illiec, where the Lindberghs often resided in the late 1930s.

Але́ксис Карре́ль (фр. Alexis Carrel) (28 июня 1873, Сент-Фуа-ле-Лион — 5 ноября 1944, Париж) — французский хирург, биолог, патофизиолог и евгенист, лауреат Нобелевской премии по физиологии и медицине в 1912 году («За признание работы по сосудистому шву и трансплантации кровеносных сосудов и органов»). В 1924 и 1927 годах избирался членом-корреспондентом и почётным членом АН СССР[4]. Считается неоднозначной личностью из-за его клерикальных убеждений, евгенических идей о неравенстве людей, сотрудничества с нацистами и ультраправой Французской народной партией.

Алексис Каррел на самом деле был замечательным биологом, награждённым Нобелевской премией по физиологии и медицине в 1912 году за свои новаторские исследования в области трансплантологии.

Всего три года спустя, в разгар Первой мировой войны, он разработал инновационный метод обработки ран антисептиком, что значительно снизило количество смертей от гангрены. Но истинные идеалы ученого проявились несколько позже. В 1935 году Каррел опубликовал книгу «Человек – это неизвестное», в которой объясняет свою поддержку евгеники, призывающую селекционировать человека подобно домашнему скоту, улучшая его наследственные признаки.

Он придерживался мнения, что женщины с «желательными» характеристиками должны размножаться с исключительно «желательными» мужчинами, а затем воспитывать своих «желательных» детей.

Он также полагал, что «нежелательных» людей следует отговаривать от размножения (читай «стерилизовать») и что преступников следует «гуманно и экономно уничтожать» в газовых камерах.