Charles Robert Richet was a pioneering French physiologist born on August 26, 1850, in Paris to a distinguished medical family, with his father serving as Professor of Clinical Surgery at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. He earned his medical degree from the University of Paris in 1877 and subsequently obtained his Doctor of Sciences in 1878, establishing himself as a formidable researcher early in his career. Richet served as Professor of Physiology at the Collège de France from 1887 until his retirement, where he conducted groundbreaking research across multiple physiological domains. His academic journey was marked by significant appointments including membership in the Académie de Médecine in 1898 and the prestigious Académie des Sciences in 1914, cementing his reputation as one of France's foremost scientific minds during the Belle Époque era.
Richet's most seminal contribution came through his discovery of anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction, which he made in collaboration with Paul Portier during a 1901 scientific expedition aboard Prince Albert I of Monaco's research vessel Princesse Alice II. Their experiments revealed that initial exposure to certain toxins could render organisms hypersensitive, causing severe and often fatal reactions upon subsequent exposure - a phenomenon Richet termed 'anaphylaxis' meaning 'against protection.' This revolutionary finding fundamentally transformed medical understanding of immune responses, demonstrating for the first time that immunity could cause harm rather than protection. Richet's subsequent research established that numerous proteins could elicit this reaction, that periodic small doses could lead to desensitization, and that hypersensitivity could be passively transferred via serum, laying the comprehensive foundation for modern allergy science and immunotherapy.
Beyond his Nobel Prize-winning work, Richet made significant contributions across diverse physiological fields including thermoregulation, where he discovered the brain's role in temperature control and the heat loss mechanism of panting in dogs, and neurochemistry, where he investigated epilepsy and cerebral cortex electrophysiology. His intellectual curiosity extended to parapsychology where he served as president of the Society for Psychical Research and championed the scientific study of metapsychics, believing in 'a faculty of supernormal cognition.' Richet's legacy endures through his fundamental contributions to immunology, with the concept of anaphylaxis remaining central to understanding allergic reactions, asthma, and immune hypersensitivity. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1913, recognizing work that continues to save lives through proper diagnosis and treatment of potentially fatal allergic conditions worldwide.
