Boutin Jean-Paul
SFMTSI Société francophone de médecine tropicale et santé internationale (ancienne SPE), Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Pavillon Laveran, 47-83 Boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75651 Paris cedex 13, France.
Service de santé des armées, 60 boulevard du gal Martial Valin, 75509 Paris Cedex 15.
Med Trop Sante Int. 2023 Feb 8;3(1). doi: 10.48327/mtsi.v3i1.2023.310. eCollection 2023 Mar 31.
This article recalls the conditions under which the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. The scientific personalities who nominated Alphonse Laveran for the prize from 1901 to 1907 are recalled, among them Ronald Ross, winner in 1902. In 1907, Karl Axel Hampus Mörner submitted Alphonse Laveran for the prize. He was then the rector of the Karolinska Institutet, as well as the chairman of the Nobel Committee and the Nobel Assembly, and had never before expressed an interest in one scientist more than another. The previous year, the Nobel Assembly had for the first time awarded the prize for physiology or medicine to two laureates, Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system". In 1907, the numerous, repeated and simultaneous nominations of Élie Metchnikoff and Paul Ehrlich were probably the subject of an important debate, which finally turned out in favour of Alphonse Laveran. We explain why we think the choice of the president prevailed. In 1908, when Laveran became one of the nominators of the prize, his main competitors of 1907 were finally crowned simultaneously "in recognition of their work on immunity".The long delay between the discovery of the malarial parasite (1880) and the award of the prize "in recognition of his work on the role played by protozoa in the appearance of diseases" is put into perspective and illustrates what will almost always be the practice, contrary to Alfred Nobel's rule of awarding the prize within a year after the discovery. The particular circumstances of the award of the prize in 1907 are described.The donation that Alphonse Laveran made on December 22nd 1907 to the Pasteur Institute out of the amount of his prize was 100,000 francs, a little more than half of the 190,000 francs grant received from the Nobel Committee. Its value, in terms of purchasing power in euros 2021, is estimated at over 400,000 euros. The use made of it by the Pasteur Institute is clearly shown in the minutes of its Board of Directors in 1908, as having been mainly devoted to the fitting out and equipment of the Laboratory of Tropical Diseases that Laveran was calling for in the buildings recently purchased on Rue Falguière (Paris); the donation was not used for the construction of new buildings.
本文回顾了首届诺贝尔奖颁发时的情况。文中提及了1901年至1907年提名阿尔方斯·拉韦朗获奖的科学界人士，其中包括1902年的获奖者罗纳德·罗斯。1907年，卡尔·阿克塞尔·汉普斯·默纳提名阿尔方斯·拉韦朗获奖。当时他是卡罗琳医学院的校长，同时也是诺贝尔委员会和诺贝尔大会的主席，此前他对任何一位科学家都从未表现出特别的偏爱。前一年，诺贝尔大会首次将生理学或医学奖授予两位获奖者，卡米洛·高尔基和圣地亚哥·拉蒙·伊·卡哈尔，“以表彰他们在神经系统结构方面的研究成果”。1907年，埃利·梅契尼科夫和保罗·埃尔利希获得了众多、反复且同时的提名，这可能引发了一场重要的辩论，最终阿尔方斯·拉韦朗胜出。我们解释了为何认为主席的选择起了决定性作用。1908年，当拉韦朗成为该奖项的提名者之一时，他在1907年的主要竞争对手最终同时获奖，“以表彰他们在免疫方面的研究成果”。从疟原虫的发现（1880年）到“表彰他在原生动物在疾病发生中所起作用方面的研究成果”的奖项颁发之间存在的长时间延迟得到了审视，这也说明了几乎总是会出现的一种情况，即与阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔规定的在发现后一年内颁奖的规则相悖。文中描述了1907年该奖项颁发的特殊情况。1907年12月22日，阿尔方斯·拉韦朗从他的奖金中拿出10万法郎捐赠给巴斯德研究所，这比从诺贝尔委员会获得的19万法郎奖金的一半略多一点。按2021年欧元的购买力计算，其价值估计超过40万欧元。巴斯德研究所董事会1908年的会议记录清楚地显示了这笔捐款的用途，主要用于为拉韦朗在法尔吉耶街（巴黎）最近购置的大楼里所倡导设立的热带病实验室进行装修和配备设备；这笔捐款未用于建造新大楼。
