Henri Laborit
Henri Laborit | |
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IPPNW) | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | neurophysiology, pharmacology, psychiatry, psychosomatics |
Institutions | Val-de-Grâce, Boucicault Hospital |
Henri Laborit (21 November 1914 – 18 May 1995) was a French surgeon, neurobiologist, writer and philosopher. In 1952, Laborit was instrumental in the development of the drug chlorpromazine, published his findings, and convinced three psychiatrists to test it on a patient, resulting in great success. Laborit was recognized for his work, but as a surgeon searching for an anesthetic, he came to be at odds with psychiatrists who made their own discoveries and competing claims.
Laborit wrote several books where he popularizes his
Family and early years
Henri Laborit was born in Hanoi, French Indochina, in 1914. His father was a physician and colonial officer who died in 1920 from tetanus. Laborit contracted tuberculosis at age 12. In Paris, he earned a baccalaureate. He spent two years in Indochina on a hospital ship.[2] He passed the examinations at the Naval Health Service in Bordeaux,[3] and became a navy physician. He was sent to Sidi Abdallah, Bizerte.[2] Feeling that his options for recognition would be better, he switched to become a surgeon.[1] During World War II he was stationed on the torpedo boat Sirocco, where he witnessed the evacuation of the Dunkerque, and then was sunk by the Germans. He was saved by an English sloop that picked him up. He received the French Military Cross with distinction. He was later stationed in Dakar. By about 1949 he was appointed to Val-de-Grâce hospital in Paris.[2]
Chlorpromazine
Laborit was the first to recognize the potential psychiatric uses of chlorpromazine.[4] The science of anesthesiology was new since the 1930s. Surgeons were sometimes responsible for anesthetics and as a French navy surgeon, Laborit had seen patients die as a result of or after their operations. He became a researcher in
With Pierre Huguenard, Laborit invented the lytic cocktail, a combination of drugs that could be given to patients to reduce the shock and stress they experienced during and after surgery. Huguenard had success with a combination of promethazine and pethidine, at the time under the trade names Diparcol and Dolossal, and told Laborit of his finding.[5] Laborit thought that putting patients into a state of artificial hibernation would prevent some aspects of stress reactions. These drugs made bodies stop their reactions to cooling.
Laborit suggested to Rhône-Poulenc (a pharmaceutical company that became Sanofi) that they create antihistamines that optimized stabilization of the central nervous system.[6] There, chemist Paul Charpentier headed a group trying to improve on the existing drug diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Dramamine, U.S. Sominex). So Charpentier created a new series of phenothiazines, one of them by adding a chlorine atom.[3] Simone Courvoisier tested the series on
He, Huguenard and an associate named R. Alluaume published "A new vegetative stabilizer: 4560 RP." in La Presse Médicale in February 1952.[8] According to Max Bennett, "the effect of the drug to produce 'disinterest' is mentioned together with the possibility that this property might make it of psychiatric use."[9]
Immediately following its synthesis at
Although it had severe
Lasker award
Laborit shared the prestigious
In 1957, the Lasker Foundation also recognized
Career
Laborit became director of the Laboratoire d'Eutonologie at Boucicault Hospital in
Awards and cultural references
Laborit received the
Laborit's ideas are the substance of the
Laborit interviewed Salvador Dalí about one of his books which Dalí had read but did not understand.[22]
Death and legacy
Healy wrote that Laborit felt cheated of his recognition and that he died a bitter man. Healy noted a few attempts to set the record straight: a 1980 book by Jean Thuillier that credits Delay and Deniker and Laborit, a 1960s book by Ann Caldwell that sided with Laborit, and a 1974 book by Judith Swazey, Chlorpromazine in Psychiatry, which gave credit to both sides. A 1992 commemoration by Rhône-Poulenc gave Laborit credit for anesthesia but gave Deniker and Delay credit for application of chlorpromazine to psychiatry. In 1994, on the 200th anniversary of the founding of Val-de-Grâce, a plaque was placed there commemorating the discovery of chlorpromazine by Laborit, Harmon, Paraire, and Velluz in 1952.[23]
Laborit was one of the pioneers of complexity theory and self-organization in France and the initiator of "complex thought" in his meetings with the "Groupe des Dix".[24] "Complex thought" was later popularized by Edgar Morin.
Publications
- Physiologie et biologie du système nerveux végétatif au service de la chirurgie (1950)
- L’anesthésie facilitée par les synergies médicamenteuses (1951)
- Réaction organique à l'agression et choc (1952)
- Pratique de l’hibernothérapie en chirurgie et en médecine (1954)
- Résistance et soumission en physio-biologie : l’hibernation artificielle (1954)
- Excitabilité neuro-musculaire et équilibre ionique. Intérêt pratique en chirurgie et hibernothérapie (1955)
- Le delirium tremens (1956)
- Bases physio-biologiques et principes généraux de réanimation (1958)
- Les destins de la vie et de l’homme. Controverses par lettres sur des thèmes biologiques (1959)
- Physiologie humaine (cellulaire et organique) (1961)
- Du soleil à l’homme (1963)
- Les régulations métaboliques (1965)
- Biologie et structure (1968)
- Neurophysiologie. Aspects métaboliques et pharmacologiques (1969)
- L’Homme imaginant : Essai de biologie politique (1970)
- L’homme et la ville (1971)
- L’agressivité détournée : Introduction à une biologie du comportement social (1970)
- La Société informationnelle : Idées pour l’autogestion (1973)
- Les Comportements : Biologie, physiologie, pharmacologie (1973)
- La Nouvelle grille (1974)
- Éloge de la fuite (1976)
- Discours sans méthode (1978)
- L’Inhibition de l’action (1979)
- La Colombe assassinée (1983)
- Dieu ne joue pas aux dés (1987)
- La vie antérieure (1987)
- Les récepteurs centraux et la transduction de signaux (1990)
- L’esprit dans le grenier (1992)
- Étoiles et molécules (1992)
- La légende des comportements (1994)
- Une Vie - Derniers entretiens (1996)
Notes
- GlaxoSmithKline) released the drug as Thorazine in 1954.[3]
- Frontline, citing E. Fuller Torrey, says from 1955 to 1994 the number of seriously ill mental patients in U.S. public psychiatric hospitals went down from 558,239 to 71,619 as a result of the introduction of chlorpromazine.[14]
References
- ^ PMID 24733976.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ ISBN 2-911119-50-9. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e "Paul Charpentier, Henri-Marie Laborit, Simone Courvoisier, Jean Delay, and Pierre Deniker". Science History Institute. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ PMID 19300578.
- ^ Healy 2002, p. 79.
- ^ Healy 2002, p. 80.
- ^ Healy 2002, pp. 80–81.
- PMID 14957790. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
- ISBN 0203302540. Retrieved September 13, 2016 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 978-0471245315.
- ^ Diaz, Jaime. How Drugs Influence Behavior. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1996.
- ^ Healy 2002, p. 82.
- ^ Healy 2002, pp. 98, 112–114.
- ^ "Deinstitutionalization: A Psychiatric "Titanic"". WGBH Educational Foundation. May 10, 2005. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
- ^ Healy 2002, p. 126.
- ^ Healy 2002, p. 127.
- ^ "1957 Lasker Awards". Albert And Mary Lasker Foundation. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
- ^ Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (June 4, 2012). "Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB): Critical Review Report" (PDF). World Health Organization. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
- PMID 14334876.
- ^ Healy 2002, pp. 82–83.
- ^ "My American Uncle". Internet Movie Database (Amazon). Retrieved September 14, 2016.
- ^ Conversation entre Salvador Dali et le professeur Henri Laborit. l'Institut national de l'audiovisuel. February 8, 1970. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
- ^ Healy 2002, pp. 127–128.
- ^ "Le Groupe des Dix", Brigitte Chamak, Éditions du Rocher, Monaco, 1997
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-674-00619-4.
External links
- Quotations related to Henri Laborit at Wikiquote
- Henri Laborit at IMDb