[About the relationship between medicine and social sciences: the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems...

Nobel Prize winner for medicine in 1912, author of a widely acclaimed best seller which was published in English and in French in 1935, Man, the Unknown, Alexis Carrel was Regent of the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems from 1942 to 1944, during the Second World War in France. The Foundation, known as the "Carrel Foundation", was created as a financially autonomous public establishment with full legal status and had a dual mission: to stkudy "all possible means of safeguarding, improving and developing the French population" (1) and to "synthesize efforts undertaken by its own members or by others and to develop the science of man" (2). Considering its short official existence and the exceptional circumstances of the period, the scientific work of the Foundation is impressive: the demographical analyses undertaken by R. Gessain, P. Tincent, and J. Bourgeois; the pioneer work of J. Sutter in nutrition; J. Merlet's work on group settings; the Gallup polls undertaken by J. Stoetzel's team; and the work and publications of the F. Perroux Department of Bio-Sociology, without failing to mention the study carried out on a group of one hundred thousand children. Amongst the effects of the Foundation, one must mention the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) and with it, the establishment of one of the most active and productive research groups in the Social and Human Sciences in France. There are other initiatives and activities which form part of the Foundation's inheritance: the creation in 1947 by Dr A. Gros, former Vice-regent of the Foundation, of the group of "Advisers in Synthesis"; the jkoint creation ten years later by D Gros and G. Berger of the group and the publication "Prospective"; the wide multidisciplinary study undertaken by the (DGRST) "Délégation Générale à la Recherche Scientifique et Technique" undertaken in 1960 thanks to the initiative of R. Gessain and of J. Sutter; and the Monaco Forums on Social Sciences, not to mention the contribution of former Foundation members to the establishment at the international level of medicine of work and the encouragement given to ergonomic studies.