1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Carrel, Alexis

CARREL, ALEXIS (1873-⁠), Franco-American surgeon, was born at Sainte-Foy-les-Lyon, France, June 28 1873. He graduated at the university of Lyons (L.B., 1890; Sc.B., 1891; M.D., 1900), and for two years was prosecteur à la faculté de médecine at that university. In 1909 he became a member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York. There he won world-wide fame by his experiments in transplanting human organs. In 1912 he read before the American Medical Association a paper on Preservation of Tissues and its Application to Surgery. The possibility of keeping alive tissues removed from the organism led to his seeking practical means of preserving them for surgical use. He was awarded a Nobel prize in 1912 for his contributions to surgical knowledge. On the outbreak of the World War he returned to France and devised the Carrel-Dakin treatment of wounds. Using H. D. Dakin's preparation, a neutral solution of hypochlorite of sodium, Carrel's apparatus keeps the wound continually moist. Countless amputations were avoided, healing was rapid, and scars supple. In 1919 he resumed his work at the Rockefeller Institute.