Reflections on Life

ALEXIS CARREL (1873-1944) was a Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon and biologist. Born on June 28, 1873 in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône, Carrel was raised in a devout Catholic family. He graduated from the University of Lyon, and later also received honorary doctorates from Queen's University of Belfast, Princeton University, California, New York, Brown University and Columbia University. In 1903 he emigrated to Montreal, Canada, but soon relocated to Chicago, Illinois to work for Hull Laboratory. While there he collaborated with American physician Charles Claude Guthrie in work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs as well as the head, for which Carrel was awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1906 he joined the newly formed Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York where he spent the rest of his career. In the 1930s, Carrel became close friends with Charles A. Lindbergh, and together they built the first perfusion pump, an invention instrumental to the development of organ transplantation and open heart surgery. Carrel died in Paris on November 5, 1944, aged 71.
ANTONIA WHITE (1899-1980) was a British writer and translator who wrote for magazines and worked in advertising. She spent nine years working as a copywriter in London, and also worked for the BBC as a translator. Her translations of French author Colette's Claudine novels were recognised for their elegance and erudition and remain the standard texts today. She published her first book, Frost in May, in 1933.