Alexis Carrel

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Lore & Background

Carrel was born in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône, on 28 June 1873, raised in a devout Catholic family and educated by Jesuits, though he became agnostic as a university student. He studied medicine at the University of Lyon. While working as an intern at a Lyon hospital, he developed a technique for suturing small blood vessels using extremely fine needles, publishing his first scientific article on the method in 1902. In 1902, he underwent a transformative experience at Lourdes: he witnessed the inexplicable healing of Marie Bailly, who identified him as the principal witness of her cure. Despite opposition from medical peers, he refused to dismiss a supernatural explanation. His beliefs proved a hindrance to his career in France, so he left for Canada. Shortly after arriving, he accepted a position at the University of Chicago, collaborating with Charles Claude Guthrie on vascular suture and transplantation of blood vessels, organs, and the head. In 1906, he joined the newly formed Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York, where he spent the rest of his career and did significant work on tissue cultures with pathologist Montrose Thomas Burrows. During World War I, he served as a major in the French Army medical Corps and developed the Carrel-Dakin method for treating wounds. In the 1930s, he and Charles Lindbergh became close friends, sharing personal, political, and social views. Lindbergh, initially seeking help for his sister-in-law's heart, offered to build new equipment after seeing the crudeness of Carrel's machinery. Together they built the first perfusion pump, which received significant media hype, including a Time magazine cover on June 13, 1938, and exhibition at the 1939 World's Fair as the "Lindbergh-Carrel mechanical heart." Despite this, the American Academy of Cardiovascular Perfusion acknowledged by 2017 that most researchers found the pump impractical and difficult to use, and by the early 1940s its time in the spotlight had run out. Carrel was forced into retirement by the Rockefeller Institute and returned to France. In 1939, he took a position with the French Ministry of Health. Due to his proximity to Jacques Doriot's fascist Parti Populaire Français during the 1930s and his role in implementing eugenics policies during Vichy France, he was accused after the Liberation of collaboration, but died before the trial. In his later life he returned to his Catholic roots. In 1939, he met Trappist monk Alexis Presse on a recommendation; Presse had a profound influence on him. In 1942, Carrel 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 deathbed in November 1944. For much of his life, Carrel and his wife spent summers on the Île Saint-Gildas, which they owned, and he persuaded Lindbergh to buy the neighboring Île Illiec.

Reader's Guide

Carrel's significance rests on several key contributions. His vascular suture technique, inspired by the 1894 death of French President Sadi Carnot from a severed portal vein, used a triangulation method with three stay-sutures that he learned from an embroideress. Between 1901 and 1910, he performed every feat and developed every technique in vascular surgery using experimental animals, earning the 1912 Nobel Prize. During World War I, with English chemist Henry Drysdale Dakin, he developed the Carrel-Dakin method of treating wounds with Dakin's solution, involving debridement and irrigation with high volumes of antiseptic fluid; the mechanical irrigation technique is still used today. With Charles Lindbergh, he co-authored *The Culture of Organs* and developed the perfusion pump in the mid-1930s, making it possible for organs to remain viable outside the body during surgery. The pump was featured on the cover of *Time* on June 13, 1938, and exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair, but by the early 1940s it was widely acknowledged as impractical and difficult to use. Carrel also developed methods to keep animal tissues alive in culture. In 1912, he began an experiment culturing tissue from an embryonic chicken heart in a stoppered Pyrex flask, maintaining it for over 20 years—longer than a chicken's normal lifespan. This experiment received significant attention but was never successfully replicated. In the 1960s, Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead proposed the Hayflick limit, suggesting that Carrel's daily feeding of nutrients continually introduced new living cells, and J. A. Witkowski argued that deliberate introduction of new cells, possibly without Carrel's knowledge, could explain the results. Carrel's legacy is complicated by his leading role in implementing eugenic policies in Vichy France, for which he was accused of collaboration after the Liberation, though he died before trial.

Did You Know?

• Carrel's vascular suture technique was inspired by the 1894 death of French President Sadi Carnot, who died from a severed portal vein that surgeons believed was irreparable.
• Carrel learned the triangulation technique for suturing blood vessels from an embroideress.
• The Carrel-Dakin method of wound antisepsis, developed during World War I with Henry Drysdale Dakin, used a chlorine-based antiseptic solution known as Dakin's solution.
• Carrel's experiment culturing embryonic chicken heart tissue lasted over 20 years, longer than a chicken's normal lifespan, but was never successfully replicated.
• Carrel was awarded the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to wound antisepsis during World War I.

Vascular Surgery and the Nobel Prize

Carrel's path into vascular surgery was sparked by a national tragedy. In 1894, French President Sadi Carnot was assassinated and died from a severed portal vein that surgeons believed was irreparable. This inspired Carrel to develop new techniques for suturing blood vessels. As a hospital intern in Lyon, he refined a method using extremely fine needles, learning a triangulation approach from an embroideress that employed three stay-sutures to minimize damage to the vascular wall. His first scientific article on the method appeared in 1902. According to Julius Comroe, Carrel performed every feat and developed every technique in vascular surgery using experimental animals between 1901 and 1910, reconnecting arteries and veins and performing surgical grafts. After moving to the United States, he collaborated with Charles Claude Guthrie at the University of Chicago on vascular suture and transplantation of blood vessels, organs, and the head. In 1912, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for these efforts. He also did significant work on tissue cultures with pathologist Montrose Thomas Burrows at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, where he spent the rest of his career.

The Lourdes Turning Point

In 1902, Carrel underwent a transformative experience at Lourdes. He had been a skeptic of the reported visions and miracles there, but witnessing the inexplicable healing of Marie Bailly—who identified him as the principal witness of her cure—led him to become a believer in spiritual cures. Despite facing opposition from his peers in the medical community, he refused to dismiss a supernatural explanation for the event. His beliefs proved to be a hindrance to his career and reputation in academic medicine in France, and as a result he left France for Canada. Carrel later wrote a book about the case, *The Voyage to Lourdes*, which was released four years after his death in 1944. His early agnosticism, shaped by Jesuit education and university skepticism, had been irrevocably altered by that single encounter, and the consequences rippled through the rest of his professional and personal life.

The Lindbergh Partnership and the Perfusion Pump

In the 1930s, Carrel and aviator Charles Lindbergh formed a close friendship rooted in shared personal, political, and social views as well as years of collaboration. Lindbergh first approached Carrel hoping his sister-in-law's heart, damaged by rheumatic fever, might be repaired. Seeing the crudeness of Carrel's existing machinery, Lindbergh offered to design new equipment. Together they built the first perfusion pump, an invention instrumental to the development of organ transplantation and open-heart surgery. The device received enormous media attention: it graced the cover of *Time* magazine on June 13, 1938, and was exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair as the "Lindbergh-Carrel mechanical heart," a focal point in the Medicine and Public Health Buildings. Lindbergh regarded Carrel as his closest friend and said he would preserve and promote Carrel's ideals after his death. Yet by the early 1940s, the pump's practical limitations became widely acknowledged. The American Academy of Cardiovascular Perfusion later confirmed that most researchers found the device impractical and difficult to use, and by the early 1940s its time in the spotlight had run out. Carrel was forced into retirement by the Rockefeller Institute and returned to France.

Faith, Politics, and a Contested Legacy

Carrel's later years were marked by a dramatic return to the Catholic faith of his childhood. In 1939, on recommendation, he met Trappist monk Alexis Presse. Though initially skeptical about meeting with a priest, Presse ended up having a profound influence on the rest of Carrel's life. By 1942, Carrel said, 'I believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul, in Revelation and in all the Catholic Church teaches.' On his deathbed in November 1944, he summoned Presse to administer the Catholic Sacraments. Yet his legacy is deeply complicated by his political entanglements. In the 1930s, he moved in close proximity to Jacques Doriot's fascist Parti Populaire Français, and after returning to France in 1939, he took a position with the French Ministry of Health. During the Vichy regime, he played a leading role in implementing eugenic policies. After the Liberation, he was accused of collaboration, but he died in November 1944 before his trial could proceed. His summers had long been spent on Île Saint-Gildas, which he owned with his wife, and he had persuaded Lindbergh to purchase the neighboring Île Illiec, where the Lindberghs often resided in the late 1930s.