In 1945 Richards was appointed professor of
medicine at Columbia University and visiting physician
and director of the First (Columbia) Division of the
Bellevue Hospital, New York. In 1947 he became Lam-
bert professor of medicine, and he retired in 1961. He
served as editor of The American Review of Tuberculo-
sis and was a member of the editorial board of
Medicineand of Circulation.He died on February 23,
1973, in Lakeville, Connecticut.
Richet, Charles-Robert(1850–1935) FrenchPhysi-
ologist Charles Richet was born on August 25, 1850,
in Paris to Alfred Richet, a professor of clinical surgery
in the Faculty of Medicine, Paris, and his wife Eugénie
Renouard. He studied in Paris at the Faculty of
Medicine, receiving degrees of doctor of medicine
(M.D.) in 1869 and doctor of sciences in physiology in
1878, but he also wrote poetry and drama while in
school to cope with the boredom. He became a profes-
sor of physiology in 1887 at the University of Paris, in
the Sorbonne, where he stayed until 1927. In 1888 he
showed that the blood of animals vaccinated against an
infection protected the animals against this infection,
and two years later he gave the first serotherapeutic
injection in humans.
In 1902 Richet made contributions in the study of
anaphylaxis, a term he used to describe a hypersensi-
tive reaction (e.g., allergy) to injections of foreign pro-
teins, e.g., serums, a phenomenon noted earlier by
Theobald Smith. Anaphylaxis is a deadly reaction in a
sensitized individual following a second injection of an
antigen. It is called Richet’s phenomenon in his honor.
For his work on anaphylaxis he received the 1913
Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
He also worked on serum therapy, the nervous sys-
tem, and role of animal heat in homeothermic animals,
and he was interested in psychological research, work-
ing in hypnosis and coining the word metaphysiquefor
research in the field of parapsychology.
From 1878 to 1902 he was editor of the Revue Sci-
entifique,and beginning in 1917 he served as the coedi-
tor of the Journal de Physiologie et de Pathologie
Générale.He published numerous papers on physiolo-
gy, physiological chemistry, experimental pathology,
and normal and pathological psychology. Several of his
important books were: Suc Gastrique chez l’Homme et
chez les Animaux(Gastric juice in man and in animals),
1878; Leçons sur les Muscles et les Nerfs(Lectures on
the muscles and nerves), 1881; Leçons sur la Chaleur
Animale(Lectures on animal heat), 1884; Essai de Psy-
chologie Générale(Essay on general psychology), 1884;
Souvenirs d’un Physiologiste(Memoirs of a physiolo-
gist), 1933. He was also the editor of Dictionnaire de
Physiologie(Dictionary of physiology), 1895–1912.
Aside from his medical research, he wrote poems,
dramatic works, and even designed a self-powered air-
plane, one of the first. He died in Paris on December 4,
1935.rickettsia Gram-negative bacteria (three genera,
Coxiella, Rickettsia,and Bartonell) that infect mam-
mals (hosts) and arthropods (parasites). R. prowazekii
is the agent of typhus. Other associated diseases
include trench fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Q
fever, Oriental spotted fever, Flinders Island spotted
fever, boutonneuse fever, rickettsialpox, Siberian tick
typhus, Queensland tick typhus, and scrub typhus
(tsutsugamushi disease).Rieske iron-sulfur protein An IRON-SULFUR PROTEIN
of the MITOCHONDRIALrespiratory chain, in which the
[2FE-2S]CLUSTERis coordinated to two sulfur LIGANDs
from cysteine and two imidazole ligands from histidine.
The term is also applied to similar proteins isolated
from photosynthetic organisms and microorganisms
and other proteins containing [2Fe-2S] clusters with
similar coordination.
See alsoCOORDINATION;PHOTOSYNTHESIS.rigor mortis The stiffening of a dead body. A result
of the depletion of adenosine triphosphate in the mus-
cle fibers.risk factor Anything in the environment, personal
characteristics, or events that make it more or less
likely that an individual might develop a certain dis-
ease or experience a change in its health status. The
risk factors for breast disease are a first-degree rela-
tive with breast cancer, ahigh-fat diet, early menstru-
ation, late menopause, first child after 30 years of age,
or no children.296 Richet, Charles-Robert