Before Dr. Alexander Fleming invented penicillin, Dr. Carrel developed the Dakin Solution, a type of hypochlorite solution made from bleach that is diluted and then treated to decrease skin irritation. Chlorine, the active ingredient in Dakin’s solution, is a potent antiseptic that kills most forms of bacteria and viruses. This simple solution saved many men in World War I and is still used when people are out in the wild, far from critical care centers and hospitals.
Carrel though had already won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1912 for his experimental, and ultimately successful work, on vascular suturing & the grafting of blood vessels and organs.” He is considered a forerunner of Dr. Christiaan Bernard’s cardiac transplant surgery because of his Nobel work. His other honours are Legion d’Honneur, France; Nordhoff-Jung Prize for Cancer Research, 1930; the Newman Foundation Award, Univ. of Illinois, 1937 and the Rotary Club of New York Service Award, 1939 and honorary memberships of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
The Fixed Quality
Dr. Carrel, as Marc Jones points out in the Essentials of Astrology, has a preponderance of fixed planets in his charts (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio &Aquarius). This preponderance is not a focal determinator¹, but a characteristic within the chart that is striking. It is not an exterior philosophy overlayed like Hellenic Lords. For Carrel, this Fixed Quality demonstrates work method — careful application and precision – somewhat like an engineer applying himself to a problem ignoring no detail. The following list are the seven planets in fixed signs.
- 1. Pluto in Taurus
- 2. Venus in Taurus
- 3. Uranus in Leo
- 4. Moon in Leo
- 5. Jupiter in Leo
- 6. Mars in Scorpio
- 7. Saturn in Aquarius
Pluto, not discovered before Carrel’s great invention, but later in 1931, is on the Third House Cusp & suggests that Carrel was very concerned about ravages of War on his Brethren and his Pisces Ascendant 14.37 in the Twelfth supports that universal attitude. It also shows his post-Pluto career as a writer, for in 1935 he penned, L’Homme, cet inconnu (Man, The Unknown) that was a best seller despite its rambling manner. In L’Homme, Carrel claimed that biology was a solution to problems of modern life and society. French historian, André Pichot² said it was written by a “great humanist,” obviously sensing Carrel’s Splash Temperament type.
Carrel pioneered in another Taurean field, thoracic surgery, Taurus rules the throat . His Dragon’s tail is in the ninth house: Carrel died in Paris on November 5, 1944, from a heart attack — Mars in Scorpio trine Sun in Cancer, exalted in its own house and thus making him a bit more than naturally predisposed to that ailment. particularly as Cancer’s ruler, is in the fifth making it that the luminaries switched houses.
The Carrel’s had no children. His wife, Anne-Marie-Laure Gourley de la Motte de Meyrie, whom he married in 1913, was his only survivor.
Footnotes:
- Focal Determinator is Marc Jones term for this special interest planet. It is always of special concern to the native because it is how they manage and cope with stress.
- Geroulanos, Stefanos, “An Atheism that is not Humanist Emerges in French Thought,” Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, c. 2010
