Editing Alexis Carrel (section)

== Biography ==
Born in [[Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon]], [[Rhône (department)|Rhône]], Carrel was raised in a devout Catholic family and was educated by [[Jesuits]], though he had become an agnostic by the time he became a university student.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lourdes resident physician gives lecture on 'miraculous' cures |url=https://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=184474 |access-date=2023-03-03 |website=www.thebostonpilot.com |language=en |archive-date=14 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200714110417/https://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=184474 |url-status=live }}</ref> He studied medicine at the [[University of Lyon]]. 

Working as an intern at a Lyon hospital, he developed a technique for suturing small blood vessels using extremely fine needles. He published his first scientific article about this method in 1902.<ref name="Alexis Carrel, Pioneer Surgeon" /> 

In 1902, Carrel underwent a transformative experience that led him from being a skeptic of the reported visions and miracles at [[Lourdes]] to a believer in spiritual cures. This conversion came about after he witnessed the inexplicable healing of Marie Bailly,<ref name="Jaki">{{cite web |last1=Jaki |first1=Stanley L. |title=Library : Two Lourdes Miracles and a Nobel Laureate: What Really Happened? |url=https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=2866 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001031230/https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=2866 |archive-date=1 October 2020 |access-date=6 September 2020 |website=Catholic Culture}}</ref> who then identified Carrel as the principal witness of her cure.<ref name="Francois">{{Cite journal |last1=Francois |first1=B. |last2=Sternberg |first2=E. M. |last3=Fee |first3=E. |year=2014 |title=The Lourdes Medical Cures Revisited |journal=Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=135–162 |doi=10.1093/jhmas/jrs041 |pmc=3854941 |pmid=22843835}}</ref> Despite facing opposition from his peers in the medical community, Carrel 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 would write a book about the case ''The Voyage to Lourdes'', which was released four years after his death.<ref>Alexis Carrel, ''The Voyage to Lourdes'' (New York, Harper & Row, 1950).</ref> 

Shortly after arriving in Canada, he accepted a position at the [[University of Chicago]]. While there he collaborated with American physician [[Charles Claude Guthrie]] in work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs as well as the [[head transplant|head]]. Carrel would be awarded the 1912 [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] for these efforts.

In 1906, he joined the newly formed [[Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research]] in New York where he spent the rest of his career.<ref name="Reggiani">Reggiani{{incomplete short citation|date=June 2019}}<!--is this the book God's Eugenicist or the 2002 journal article--></ref><ref name=":0">{{cite web |title=Alexis Carrel - Biographical |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1912/carrel/biographical/ |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |website=Nobelprize.org}}</ref> There he did significant work on tissue cultures with pathologist [[Montrose Thomas Burrows]]. 

In [[World War I]], Carrel served as a major in the French Army medical Corps. During this time he developed the popular Carrel-Dakin method for treating wounds.<ref name=":0" />

In the 1930s, Carrel and [[Charles Lindbergh]] became close friends not only because of the years they worked together but also because they shared personal, political, and social views. Lindbergh initially sought out Carrel to see if his sister-in-law's heart, damaged by [[rheumatic fever]], could be repaired. When Lindbergh saw the crudeness of Carrel's machinery, he offered to build new equipment for the scientist. Eventually they built the first [[perfusion pump]], an invention instrumental to the development of organ transplantation and open heart surgery. Lindbergh considered Carrel his closest friend, and said he would preserve and promote Carrel's ideals after his death.<ref name="Reggiani" />

In 1939, Carrel returned to France and took a position with the French Ministry of Health.<ref name=":0" /> Due to his close proximity with [[Jacques Doriot]]'s fascist [[Parti Populaire Français]] (PPF) 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 with [[Trappist monk]] Alexis Presse on a recommendation. Although Carrel was skeptical about meeting with a priest,<ref name="Jaki" /> Presse ended up having a profound influence on the rest of Carrel's life.<ref name="Reggiani" /> In 1942, he 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 [[Sacrament]]s on his death bed in November 1944.<ref name="Jaki" />

For much of his life, Carrel and his wife spent their summers on the {{ill|Île Saint-Gildas,|fr|v=sup}} which they owned. After he and Lindbergh became close friends, Carrel persuaded him to also buy a neighboring island, the [[Ile Illiec]], where the Lindberghs often resided in the late 1930s.{{sfn|Friedman|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/immortalistschar00frie_0/page/140 140]}}