Charles Robert Richet Biography

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World of Anatomy and Physiology on Charles Robert Richet

French physiologist Charles Robert Richet won the 1913 Nobel Prize for his discovery of a nonprotective, toxic immune system process that he called anaphylaxis, a process related to the shock and allergic reactions that occur when foreign substances are injected into the body. Richet also tried to develop treatments for tuberculosis and to discover a serum to prevent tuberculosis.

Richet was born August 26, 1850, in Paris. His father, Alfred Richet, taught surgery at the University of Paris. His mother was Eugénie Rouard. After secondary school, Richet decided he wanted to practice medicine. He enrolled in the University of Paris medical school, but he soon found that he was more interested in research than in applied medicine. He also weighed the possibilities of a career in the humanities, and although he choose science instead, he maintained an active interest in literary, philosophical, and political subjects throughout his life.

In 1877, he received his medical degree. As a medical student, he did research on hypnotism, digestive tract fluids, and the function of the nerves and muscles in the presence of pain. He quickly went on to obtain his degree as a doctor of science in 1878. In his doctoral thesis, Richet showed that various forms of animal and marine life contain stomach hydrochloric acid. He also found the presence of a form of lactic acid in the human stomach. In that same year, he was appointed to the medical faculty of the University of Paris. With this appointment Richet focused his attention on the different ways the muscles contract.

After doing research in 1883 on heat maintenance in warm-blooded animals and the distribution of bacteria in the body fluids (an outgrowth of his work on the digestive system), in 1887 Richet began to work on the problem of creating a serum that could protect an animal against specific diseases. He followed the work of Louis Pasteur, who in 1880 found a way of protecting chickens from coming down with fowl cholera by injecting them with a weak form of the cholera microbe. The injection of the serum containing the weakened forms of the microbes created an antidote in the body that could then later fight off an invasion from a stronger force of the microbes. The injected serum contained the antigen, and the body receiving the injection produced the antibody.

Richet did extensive work in the development of techniques for immunization with his collaborator, Jules Hericourt. Over a ten-year period, Richet and Hericourt tried to develop a serum for tuberculosis, without any success. They were frustrated by the fact that Emil Behring had shown positive results for the development of an immunization serum for diphtheria during the same period of time.

In 1902, Richet was drawn to the problem of shock or allergic reactions in people after they received inoculations of disease-fighting serum. He noticed that some animals that had received a dosage of immunization serum would go into fatal shock when a second shot was administered. He found that the antibody produced by the first shot did not protect the animals against the second shot. The animal was now in a state of hypersensitivity caused by the production of too many antibodies against the foreign intruder. Richet called this condition anaphylaxis, a Greek word that means overprotection.

By 1906, the word allergy had been introduced to describe a wide range of adverse reactions to the use of antiserums and later antibiotics. The term also came into use to describe reactions to plants, animals, foods, chemicals, and many other substances. These substances fall into the category of antigens, meaning foreign substances that cause the immune system to produce antibodies, and they could therefore be understood in terms of Richet's concept of anaphylaxis. Richet was, therefore, a pioneer in the field of medicine dealing with the prevention and treatment of allergies.

For his development of the concept of anaphylaxis, Richet won the 1913 Nobel Prize. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, Richet acknowledged the difficulties anaphylaxis causes individuals, but he emphasized its biological significance in insuring the chemical integrity of the species. Such an argument was rooted in his philosophy of biological teleology, a view that maintains that there is a purpose in every biological process for the species concerned.

In 1926, Richet received the Cross of the Legion of Honor from France for his work during World War I studying the problems of blood plasma transfusion.

Richet married Amélie Aubry in 1877. The Richets had five sons and two daughters. Richet was also noted for his varied interests in non-scientific activities. He wrote poetry, novels, and plays, and for thirty years, he studied and wrote about hypnotism, parapsychology, telepathy, and extrasensory perception. In 1890, he participated in an early attempt to design an airplane. He was a pacifist who was outspoken on social and political issues, and he wrote on the subject of vivisection. He died in Paris on December 3, 1935.