Charles Richet

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Charles Richet
Born(1850-08-25)25 August 1850
Paris, France
Died4 December 1935(1935-12-04) (aged 85)
Paris, France
Alma materUniversity of Paris
AwardsNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1913)

Charles Robert Richet (25 August 1850 – 4 December 1935) was a French physiologist at the Collège de France and immunology pioneer. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of his work on anaphylaxis".[1] Richet devoted many years to the study of paranormal and spiritualist phenomena, coining the term "ectoplasm". He believed in the inferiority of black people, was a proponent of eugenics, and presided over the French Eugenics Society towards the end of his life. The Richet line of professorships of medical science continued through his son Charles and his grandson Gabriel.[2] Gabriel Richet was also one of the pioneers of European nephrology.[3]

Career

Richet in 1922

He was born on 25 August 1850 in Paris the son of Alfred Richet. He was educated at the Lycee Bonaparte in Paris then studied medicine at university in Paris.[4]

Richet spent a period of time as an intern at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, where he observed Jean-Martin Charcot's work with then so called "hysterical" patients.[citation needed]

In 1887, Richet became professor of

Académie de Médecine.[citation needed] In 1914, he became a member of the Académie des Sciences.[5]

Richet discovered the analgesic drug chloralose with Maurice Hanriot.[6]

Richet had many interests, and he wrote books about history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, as well as theatre and poetry. He was a pioneer in aviation.[5]

He was involved in the French pacifist movement. Starting in 1902, pacifist societies began to meet at a National Peace Congress, often with several hundred attendees. Unable to unify the pacifist forces they set up a small permanent delegation of French Pacifist Societies in 1902, which Richet led, together with Lucien Le Foyer as secretary-general.[7]

Discovery of anaphylaxis

Richet, working with

Actinia sulcata).[11]

In their first experiment on the ship, they injected a dog with the toxin, expecting the dog to develop immunity (tolerance) to the toxin, but instead it suffered a severe immune reaction (

prophylaxis) as they had expected, caused further doses to be deadly.[12]

In 1902, Richet coined the term aphylaxis to describe the phenomenon; he later changed it to anaphylaxis because he thought it was more

sudden cardiac death. Richet continued to study the phenomenon of anaphylaxis, and in 1913 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work.[18][19][1]

Parapsychology

Richet was deeply interested in the idea of

Frederic William Henry Myers and Gabriel Delanne.[citation needed] In 1919, Richet became honorary chairman of the Institut Métapsychique International in Paris, and, in 1930, its full-time president.[20]

Richet hoped to find a physical mechanism that would scientifically validate the existence of paranormal phenomena.[21] He wrote: "It has been shown that as regards subjective metapsychics the simplest and most rational explanation is to suppose the existence of a faculty of supernormal cognition ... setting in motion the human intelligence by certain vibrations that do not move the normal senses."[22] In 1905, Richet was named president of the Society for Psychical Research in the United Kingdom.[23]

Linda Gazzera a medium Richet investigated, in Paris, 1909.

In 1894, Richet coined the term ectoplasm.[24] Richet believed that some apparent mediumship could be explained physically as due to the external projection of a material substance (ectoplasm) from the body of the medium, but he didn't believe that this proposed substance had anything to do with spirits. He rejected the spirit hypothesis of mediumship as unscientific, instead supporting the sixth-sense hypothesis.[6][25] According to Richet:

It seems to me prudent not to give credence to the spiritistic hypothesis... it appears to me still (at the present time, at all events) improbable, for it contradicts (at least apparently) the most precise and definite data of physiology, whereas the hypothesis of the sixth sense is a new physiological notion which contradicts nothing that we learn from physiology. Consequently, although in certain rare cases spiritism supplies an apparently simpler explanation, I cannot bring myself to accept it. When we have fathomed the history of these unknown vibrations emanating from reality – past reality, present reality, and even future reality – we shall doubtless have given them an unwonted degree of importance. The history of the Hertzian waves shows us the ubiquity of these vibrations in the external world, imperceptible to our senses.[26]

He hypothesized a "sixth sense", an ability to perceive hypothetical vibrations, and he discussed this idea in his 1928 book Our Sixth Sense.

life after death or spirits.[6]

He investigated and studied various mediums, such as

Joaquin María Argamasilla, known as the "Spaniard with X-ray Eyes", had genuine psychic powers.[28] whom Harry Houdini exposed Argamasilla as a fraud in 1924.[29] According to Joseph McCabe, Richet was also duped by the fraudulent mediums Eva Carrière and Eusapia Palladino.[30]

The historian Ruth Brandon criticized Richet as credulous when it came to psychical research, pointing to "his will to believe, and his disinclination to accept any unpalatably contrary indications".[31]

Eugenics and racial beliefs

Richet was a proponent of eugenics, advocating sterilization and marriage prohibition for those with mental disabilities.[32] He expressed his eugenist ideas in his 1919 book La Sélection Humaine.[33] From 1920 to 1926 he presided over the French Eugenics Society.[34]

Psychologist Gustav Jahoda has noted that Richet "was a firm believer in the inferiority of blacks",[35] comparing black people to apes, and intellectually to imbeciles.[36]

Works

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Charles Richet

Richet's works on parapsychological subjects, which dominated his later years, include Traité de Métapsychique (Treatise on Metapsychics, 1922), Notre Sixième Sens (Our Sixth Sense, 1928), L'Avenir et la Prémonition (The Future and Premonition, 1931) and La Grande Espérance (The Great Hope, 1933).

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1913 Charles Richet". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  2. PMID 12170279
    .
  3. PMID 29534697
    .
  4. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  5. ^
    ISBN 1-56000-063-5
  6. ^
    ISBN 0-285-62042-8
  7. ^ Guieu, Jean-Michel (2005). "6 – Tensions nationalistes et efforts pacifistes". La France, l'Allemagne et l'Europe (1871–1945) (in French). Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  8. PMID 14989211
    .
  9. PMID 12170279
    .
  10. PMID 21824078
    .
  11. ^
    PMID 21682750
    .
  12. PMID 3884689
    .
  13. PMID 21682750
    ., citing May CD, "The ancestry of allergy: being an account of the original experimental induction of hypersensitivity recognizing the contribution of Paul Portier", J Allergy Clin Immunol. 1985 Apr; 75(4):485–495.
  14. ^ "anaphylaxis". merriam-webster.com. Archived from the original on 10 April 2010. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  15. ^ "De l'action anaphylactique de certains venins | Association des amis de la Bibliothèque nationale de France". sciences.amisbnf.org. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  16. ^ "De l'action anaphylactique de certains venins – ScienceOpen". www.scienceopen.com. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  17. PMID 24925384
    , retrieved 24 June 2022
  18. PMID 22331744
    .
  19. PMID 15025138
    .
  20. ^ "Charles Richet" Archived 11 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Institut Métapsychique International.
  21. ^ Alvarado, C. S. (2006). "Human radiations: Concepts of force in mesmerism, spiritualism and psychical research" (PDF). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. 70: 138–162.
  22. ^ Richet, C. (1923). Thirty Years of Psychical Research. Translated from the second French edition. New York: Macmillan.
  23. ISBN 0-275-94683-5
    "In 1905, Professor Charles Richet, the French physiologist on the faculty of medicine of Paris and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1913, was made its president. Although he was a materialist and positivist, he was drawn to psychical research."
  24. ISBN 978-1-4419-1222-0
  25. ^ Ashby, Robert H. (1972). The Guidebook for the Study of Psychical Research. Rider. pp. 162–179
  26. ^ a b Richet, Charles. (nd, ca 1928). Our Sixth Sense. London: Rider. (First published in French, 1928)
  27. ^ McCabe, Joseph. (1920). Is Spiritualism Based On Fraud? The Evidence Given By Sir A. C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined. London Watts & Co. pp. 33–34
  28. ISBN 978-1591020868
  29. ISBN 978-0813124674
  30. ^ McCabe, Joseph. (1920). Scientific Men and Spiritualism: A Skeptic's Analysis. The Living Age. 12 June. pp. 652–657.
  31. ^ Brandon, Ruth. (1983). The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 135
  32. ISBN 978-963-9776-83-8
  33. ISBN 978-90-481-2739-9
  34. ISBN 978-1-78238-120-4
  35. ISBN 978-0-415-18855-5
  36. ISBN 978-1-84872-610-9

Further reading

External links

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