Alexis Carrel, the man unknown. Journey of an idea.

MANY American physicians may not realize that their country's first Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded in 1912, not to an American, but to an expatriated Frenchman for work that he began in France. A look at the enigmatic French physician who started America's tradition of Nobel Prize laurels provides some insight into why his ideas found a place to grow in the United States. Alexis Carrel was born in SainteFoy-les-Lyon, a village in the prosperous Lyon region of France on June 28, 1873. His parents were descendants of well-to-do textile and linen merchants. Although his first name was originally Auguste, he was given his father's first name, Alexis, after the death of his father in 1877, as was a custom for honoring the dead. His mother, forced to raise three small children on a reduced income, turned occasionally to sewing and embroidering with a sewing circle in Lyon. The