CARRER, ALEXIS. - Surgeon and biologist, born at Ste-Foy-les-Lyon (France) on 28 June 1873, died in Paris on 5 November 1944. He graduated in science and in medicine at the University of Lyon. In 1912 he entered the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, where he remained until his death, directing the department of experimental surgery.
In 1912 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for his work on the nature of blood vessels and organ transplants. He collaborated with C. A. Lindbergh in research in which they constructed an artificial circulation heart; he also worked with Lecomte du Noüy, who provided a mathematical basis for the results he obtained on the rate of healing in relation to the size of the wound and the age of the subject. Among the many honorary recognitions for his vast and important scientific output, he was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Special mention must be made of his work in modifying and perfecting tissue culture in vitro—discovered by Harrison—achieving results of the greatest importance for both medicine and biology, such as the survival of embryonic chick heart fibroblasts for twenty-eight years.
His book *Man the Unknown* (New York 1935; Italian trans., Milan 1936), known throughout the world, sets out his experiences and insights as a physician and man for a better understanding of both nature and human life and events. However, it is not free from serious errors regarding God, the spiritual nature of the soul, true spiritual and supernatural values. Shortly before his death he wrote *The Prayer* (New York 1944; Italian trans., Brescia 1947), in which, while praising prayer as a beneficial and salutary element, he makes serious errors regarding its nature. More recently, posthumously, *Le voyage de Lourdes*, followed by fragments of a journal and meditations (Paris 1949; Italian trans., Brescia 1949) has appeared, and *La conduite de la vie*, following *Man the Unknown*, is about to be published. In these last two works a more lively approach to the truths of the Faith and to the intervention of the supernatural is noted, to the point that a few weeks before his death he said: «I want to believe and I believe all that the Catholic Church wants us to believe; I have no difficulty in doing so, because in its Message I find nothing in contrast with the data established by science» (*Le voyage de Lourdes...*, III, loc. cit.).