THE SURVIVAL OF ORGANS AND THE "CULTURE" OF 



LIVING TISSUES.^ 



By R. Legendre, 

 Preparator of Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Paris. 



[With 4 plates.] 



The Nobel prize iii medicine for 1912 has just been awarded to 

 Dr. Alexis Carrel, a Frenchman, of Lyon, now employed at the 

 Rockefeller Institute of New York, for his entire work relating to 

 the suture of vessels and the transplantation of organs. 



Tlie remarkable results obtained in these fields by various experi- 

 menters, of whom Carrel is most widely kno-wTi, and also the wonderful 

 a])plications made of them by certain surgeons have already been 

 published in La Nature (No. 1966, Jan. 28, 1911). 



We will not repeat what has been said concerning these researches, 

 but we will take the occasion of the awardmg of the Nobel prize to 

 mentio]! other biological studies in which Dr. Carrel has been 

 engaged. 



The journals have frequently spoken lately of "cultures" of 

 tissues detached from the organism to which they belonged; and 

 some of them, exaggeratmg the results already obtamed, have 

 stated that it is now possible to inake living tissues grow and increase 

 when so detached. 



Ilavhig given these subjects much study I wish to state here 

 what has already been done and what we may hope to accomplish. 



As a matter of fact wo do not yet know how to construct livuig 

 cells; the forms obtained with mineral substances by Errera, Ste- 

 phane Leduc, and others, have only a remote resemblance to those 

 of life; neither do we know how to prevent death; but yet it is 

 interesting to know that it is possible to prolong for some time the 

 life of organs, tissues, and cells after they have been removed from 

 the organism. 



The idea of preserving the life of greater or lesser parts of an 

 organism occurred at about the same time to a number of persons, 



« Translated by permission from La Nature, Paris, No. 2058, Nov. 2, 1912. 



413 



