Alexis Carrel and Carl Beck—: A Historical Footnote

ALEXIS CARREL AND CARL BECKA HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE WILLIAM C. BECK* There are many splendid reviews of the productive life of Nobel Laureate Alexis Carrel [1—4]. He was a scientist who accurately foretold much of modern basic scientific investigation and its clinical application. As Julius Comroe states, "between 1901 and 1910, Alexis Carrel using experimental animals, performed every feat and developed every technique known to vascular surgeons today." He used patch grafts, replaced arteries, performed a coronary bypass operation using a carotid artery, and transplanted hearts, lungs, thyroid glands, spleens, kidneys, and limbs. He made use of tissue culture and even used a magnifying loupe to assist in suture of small vessels. Yet, his work is so generally forgotten that some 5 years ago Comroe entitled his paper "Who Was Alexis Who?" [5]. Carrel's close collaboration with Carl Beck (my father) is referred to in most of Carrel's biographies. Yet, most make it appear as though their meeting in Montreal was accidental and that Carrel declined rather than accepted Beck's offer to work with him at the University of Illinois. It is this erroneous impression that I would like to correct. I have hesitated to do so before because I had always felt that, because my father had recommended him for the Nobel Prize, he might be accused of "nepotism ," since they had worked together and had similar interests. I was disabused of this notion by Doctor Comroe, who wrote to me, "I really don't think so. No one ever gets a prize unless someone nominates him and the Swedes scrutinize each nomination with great care" (personal communication, September 18, 1978). Carl Beck was born in Milin, Bohemia (Czechoslovakia), in 1864, took his medical degree with honors from the Karl's University in Prague, and had his training in surgery at the Gussenbauer Second Surgical *Donald Guthrie Foundation for Medical Research, Guthrie Square, Sayre, Pennsylvania 18840.© 1986 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1-5982/87/3001-0507$01 .00 148 William C. Beck ¦ Alex Carrel and Carl Beck Clinic in Vienna as well as training in pathology with Chiari in Vienna. He was recruited as a professor of surgical pathology at the College of Physicians and Surgery (which later became the University of Illinois) and became Professor of Surgery at Illinois. He was an avid reader of surgical literature in five languages and thus had read Carrel's article on visceral transplantation in 1902 in Lyon Medicine [6]. As a result, he performed the same operation, transplanting a dog's kidney into its neck in 1903. The kidney secreted urine for several days, then became infected, and the anastomosis became thrombosed . He wrote Carrel that their operations had had the same outcome. This initiated a correspondence between them. Incidentally, Carrel had used the technique of uniting the renal and carotid arteries and the renal andjugular veins by the use of vascular rings [7], while Beck used the suture suggested byJaboulet [8] (with whom Carrel had worked) and later by Dörfler. Carrel wrote Beck of his plan to come to Canada and eventually informed him ofthe presentation he would make at a Frenchlanguage meeting at Montreal. Beck took his brother with him to attempt to persuade Carrel tojoin him in Chicago. It was helpful that they could converse in French. Carrel's knowledge of English was very limited (Beck's French was so proficient that he acted as the French commissioner at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893). In fact, Carrel wrote rather well in English but was limited conversationally even after many years of residence. Carreljoined Beck in Chicago, reaching that city by a circuitous route that enabled him to see much of the western United States. Unfortunately , the arrangement was for Carrel to work with Beck not only in the small animal laboratory in the college but also in the operating room and in practice. Photographs have been published showing him giving an anesthetic while Beck operates. His assisting, however, left much to be desired, and his lack of command of English was soon recognized to be a real drawback in patient care. In those days, there was...