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André F. Cournand
André F. Cournand (born Sept. 24, 1895,Paris, France—died Feb. 19, 1988,Great Barrington, Mass., U.S.) was a French-American physician and physiologist who in 1956 shared theNobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine withDickinson W. Richards andWerner Forssmann for discoveries concerning heart catheterization and circulatory changes.
His medical studies interrupted byWorld War I, Cournand graduated from theUniversity of Paris in 1930. He studied at Bellevue Hospital,New York City, where he met Richards. Together theycollaborated in clinical lung andheart research and perfected Forssmann’s procedure, now termedcardiac catheterization, whereby a tube is passed into the heart from a vein at the elbow. With this procedure it became possible to study the functioning of the diseased human heart and to make more accuratediagnoses of the underlying anatomic defects. Cournand and Richards also used the catheter to examine the pulmonary artery, thus enabling improvement in thediagnosis of lung diseases as well.
- In full:
- André Frédéric Cournand
- Died:
- Feb. 19, 1988,Great Barrington, Mass.,U.S. (aged 92)
- Awards And Honors:
- Nobel Prize (1956)
- Subjects Of Study:
- circulatory system
- disease
- heart
Cournand joined the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons ofColumbia University in 1934, retiring as emeritus professor ofmedicine in 1964. He remained active as a special lecturer until his finalillness. He became a naturalized citizen of theUnited States in 1941.
