Nobel Prize Recipient. Corneille Heymans received international recognition after being awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. According to the Nobel Prize committee, he received the coveted award "for the discovery of the role played by the sinus and aortic mechanisms in the regulation of respiration." He received eight nominations for the Nobel candidacy, yet from 1938, he initiated the nominations of 18 Nobel candidates in various categories. Born the son of J. F. Heymans, Professor of Pharmacology and Rector of the University of Ghent, he received his education in Ghent at private Catholic schools. During World War I, he served in the Belgian military as a Field Artillery Officer from 1915 to 1919. His medical education was at the University of Ghent, graduating in 1920 with a Doctorate in Medicine degree. For two years he did post graduate experiences with outstanding physicians at the Collège de France in Paris; University of Lausanne in Switzerland; University of Vienna in Austria; University College of London, England; and Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Returning to the University of Ghent, he became a Lecturer in Pharmacodynamics in 1922. In 1930 he succeeded his father as Professor of Pharmacology, being also appointed Head of the Department of Pharmacology, Pharmacodynamics, and Toxicology; at the same time, he became Director of the J. F. Heymans Institute of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the facility which was founded by his father. He was Professor Emeritus since 1963. While at the Heyman Institute, he studied the physiology and pharmacology of respiration, blood circulation, metabolism, and numerous pharmacological problems. These studies led, in particular, to the discovery of the chemoreceptors, situated in the cardio-aortic and carotid sinus areas, and also to contributions regarding the proprioceptive regulation of arterial blood pressure and hypertension. The discovery of the reflexogenic role of the cardio-aortic and the carotid sinus areas in the regulation of respiration earned him the Nobel Prize in 1938. In 1926, he with his father published a research paper showing that chemical changes in the peripheral blood induced reflex alterations in the central respiratory rhythm. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he thanked his father for making a pathway to this award; his father, who died in 1932, was not a Nobel candidate as the award is not given posthumously. Both he and his father had established high-profile reputations in the scientific circles of the day and their work was well respected. He had other areas of interest for research, such as arterial hypertension causing renal disease and the circulation of the brain. In his laboratory, he used anesthetized dogs for his research. A prolific author, he published at least 800 papers in professional periodicals. He was publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the professional periodical "Archives Internationales de Pharmacodynamie et de Thérapie," founded in 1895 by his father and Professor E. Gley in Paris. Having a remarkable command of English, as well as several other languages, he lectured at numerous universities in Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia. Commissioned by the World Health Organization, he traveled to Iran and India in 1953, Egypt in 1955, the Belgian Congo in 1957, Latin America in 1958, China in 1959, Japan in 1960, Iraq in 1962, and to Tunisia and Cameroun in 1963. Heymans served as president of the International Union of Physiological Sciences and the International Council of Pharmacology. Besides the Nobel Prize, he was the recipient of many other awards and honors from scientific organizations and universities around the world. A devote Roman Catholic, he was elected to membership in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, from which he received the Pius XI Medal in 1939, and was the recipient of two papal awards including the honorary title of Commander of the Knightly Order of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. He married Berthe May, an ophthalmologist, in 1921 and the couple had five children; his son, Charles, died in 1940 at the age of 19. He died from a stroke. At the time of his death, the Heyman Institute was in the process of being moved to a new building. No other family member has since his death been director of the Heyman Institute. He was honored on a stamp issued by Belgium in 1987 as part of a benefit for the Red Cross.