Charles Robert Richet

prizes = Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1913)

Charles Robert Richet (August 25, 1850 – December 4, 1935) was a French physiologist who initially investigated a variety of subjects such as neurochemistry, digestion, thermoregulation in homeothermic animals, and breathing.

Biography

Richet was named professor of physiology at the Collège de France in 1887, and in 1898 he became a member of the Académie de Médecine. It was, however, his work on anaphylaxis (his term for the sometimes lethal reaction by a sensitized individual to a second, small-dose injection of an antigen) that in 1913 won him the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. This research helped elucidate hay fever, asthma and other allergic reactions to foreign substances and explained some cases of intoxication and sudden death not previously understood. In 1914 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences.

Richet was a man of many interests, and his works include books about history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, as well as theatre plays and poetry. He pioneered aviation. He also had a deep interest in extrasensory perception and hypnosis. In 1884 Alexander Aksakov got him interested in the medium Eusapia Palladino. In 1891 Richet founded the "Annales des sciences psychiques". He kept in touch with renowned occultists and spiritist of his time such as Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Frederic William Henry Myers and Gabriel Delanne. In 1905 he was named president of the Society for Psychical Research in the United Kingdom, and coined the terms "ectoplasm" and "metapsychics". He experimented with Marthe Béraud, Elisabette D'Espérance, William Eglinton and Stefan Ossowiecki. He became honorary president of the Institut Métapsychique International in Paris in 1919, and full-time president in 1929.

Richet's work on this para-scientific subjects, which dominated his late years, include "Traité de Métapsychique" ("Treaty of Metapsychics", 1922), "Notre Sixième Sens" ("Our Sixth Sense", 1928), "L'Avenir et la Prémonition" ("The Future and Premonition", 1931), "La grande espérance" ("The Great Hope", 1933).

External links

* [http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/people/data?id=per131 Short biography and bibliography] in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
* [http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/concepts/browse?source=Richet Richet's "Dictionnaire de physiologie"] (1895-1928) as fullscan from the original
* [http://www.geocities.com/richet_charles_robert/ Charles Robert Richet photo]
* [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1913/richet-bio.html Charles Richet Biography on Nobel Prize website]