CARREL, ALEXIS. 1873-1944.


Three items: 1. "Transplantation in Mass of the Kidneys." [Offprint from:] The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol X, No 1, January, 1908. 4to. 3 full page plates. Printed wrappers, leaves unopened. INSCRIBED by Carrel. GM 4235.2. "Uniterminal And Biterminal Venous Transplantations." [Offprint from:] American Journal of the Medical Sciences, September, 1906. 8vo. Printed wrappers. INSCRIBED by Carrel, "Respectueux hommage des auteurs. A. C."3. Autograph Letter Signed ("Alexis Carrel") in French, to Louis Gallavardin, 4 pp, 8vo, September 2, 1937, mentioning his work with Charles Lindbergh "in a primitive laboratory he set up in the deepest solitude of St Gildas," toned at the margins.Carrel was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1912 "in recognition of his work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs." He also collaborated with Charles Lindbergh on a "perfusion pump," which was designed to allow living organs to exist outside the body during surgery. This was an important precursor to medical devices like the heart-lung machine. "Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize winner in 1912, revolutionized vascular surgery. He transplanted the kidney from one animal to another, an operation later carried out successfully in man" (GM 4235). His paper ("Transplantation in Mass of the Kidneys") is of great significance in the history of vascular surgery. "Subsequent progress in surgery of the heart and blood vessels and in transplantation of organs has rested upon the foundation he laid down between 1904 and 1908" (DSB 3, pp 90-92). Accompanied by a chromolithograph caricature depicting Carrel holding a platter with bizarre creatures created by grafting heads of one species onto another (1914).