Description
This collection relating to the French/American surgeon Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) contains materials which had been mounted
or loosely inserted into a scrapbook. Most of the items are newspaper clippings, plus some manuscript letters and ephemera.
Dr. Carrel, whose research in vascular suturing and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs in animals won him the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912, also won him the enmity of anti-vivisectionists; a few of the letters and
articles express their viewpoint vividly. As a French Army surgeon during the 1914-1919 war Dr. Carrel collaborated on important
advances in the antisepsis of wound treatment. His work with tissue culture also contributed significantly to the understanding
of viruses and the preparation of vaccines.
Background
Dr. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) was a complicated, multi-faceted individual. Here are some descriptors retrieved on a Google
search of his name: surgeon, biologist, sociologist, Nobel laureate, vivisectionist, eugenicist, Nazi sympathizer, genius,
innovator, believer in miracles, ideologist.
Restrictions
Property rights in the physical objects belong to the UCLA Biomedical Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are
retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish if the Biomedical Library does not hold the copyright.