Charles Robert Richet was a French physiologist who was awarded the ‘Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine’ in 1913 for his research work on the serious life-threatening allergic reaction anaphylaxis. Richet was also a noted pathologist, bacteriologist and medical statistician. His other research works include examining physiology of respiration and digestion, regulation of body heat, epilepsy and work on parapsychology. He aided in elucidating issues like asthma, hay fever and many other allergic reactions caused due to exposure to foreign substances and analysed and clarified cases related to toxicity and unexpected deaths not comprehensible earlier. He was a member of the ‘Académie des Sciences’ and served as President of the ‘Society for Psychical Research’ in UK. He became honorary president and later full-time president of the ‘Institut Métapsychique International’ in Paris. He was also an enthusiast of art and literature and achieved acclamation as a distinguished playwright, novelist and poet and also had great interest in hypnosis and extrasensory perception. He remained editor of the scientific journal, ‘Revue Scientifique’ for over two decades and co-editor of ‘Journal de Physiologie et de Pathologie Générale’. He was conferred with ‘Cross of the Legion of Honour’ in 1926.
