Paul Niehans

Paul Niehans, the son of a doctor, was born in Bern, Switzerland[3] He first studied theology, but quickly grew dissatisfied with religious life and took up medicine. He first studied at Bern, then completed an internship in Zürich. Niehans joined the Swiss Army in 1912.

Niehans worked for the Red Cross when the first world war broke out in the Balkans, where he set up a hospital for the wounded in Belgrade, Yugoslavia where he served as director, he also served as a surgeon on the dolomites front. Later during WWII he would work for prisoners in France and Germany

Intrigued with Alexis Carrel's experiments, Niehans specialized in glandular transplants and by 1925 was one of the leading glandular surgeons in Europe. In 1931, Niehans treated a patient suffering from tetany whose parathyroid had been erroneously removed by another physician. Too weak for a glandular transplant, the patient was given injections of the parathyroid glands of steer, and she soon recovered.[4]

In 1937, influenced by the work of the neurosurgeon Harvey Williams Cushing, Niehans first used cerebral cells, from the hypothalamus and the hypophysis. Beginning in 1948, he also used liver, pancreas, kidney, heart, duodenum, thymus, and spleen cells. In 1949, he began to use lyophilized (freeze-dried) cells, not only fresh ones. In 1953, Paul Niehans treated Pope Pius XII, who in gratitude appointed him member of the Papal Academy of Sciences. In the United States, it is not legally available because of safety concerns and lack of proof of its effectiveness.[5]