Henri Laborit was a French polymath, born on November 21, 1914, in Hanoi, French Indochina, to a physician and colonial officer father who tragically passed away in 1920 due to tetanus. Laborit's early life was marked by hardship, as he contracted tuberculosis at the age of 12 and spent two years in Indochina on a hospital ship.
After completing his baccalaureate in Paris, Laborit joined the Naval Health Service in Bordeaux and became a navy physician. He was stationed on the torpedo boat Sirocco during World War II, where he witnessed the evacuation of Dunkerque and later survived being sunk by the Germans. He received the French Military Cross with distinction for his bravery.
Following the war, Laborit switched to become a surgeon and was appointed to the Val-de-Grâce hospital in Paris around 1949. As a surgeon, he became increasingly concerned about the risks associated with anesthesia and the high mortality rates among patients. He began researching new methods of anesthesia, including the use of chlorpromazine, which he first recognized as having potential psychiatric uses.
Laborit's work on anesthesia led him to develop new ideas, such as potentiated anesthesia, lowering basal metabolism, and artificial hibernation. He also experimented with various substances, including procaine, synthetic antihistamines, Diparcol, tetraethylammonium bromide, and vitamin B1, and advocated for the use of promethazine to relax patients before surgery.
As a writer and philosopher, Laborit was drawn to systems thinking and the integration of knowledge from multiple disciplines. He was a strong advocate for interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, and his writings often explored the connections between ethology, psychology, and philosophy. Laborit's work was also influenced by anarchist thought, and he maintained an independence from academia, refusing to conform to the strict requirements of scientific research.
Throughout his life, Laborit remained committed to his values of autonomy and free thinking, and his work continues to inspire and influence thinkers across various fields.
