Corentin Louis Kervran

Who was Corentin Louis Kervran?

Corentin Louis Kervran was a French scientist best known for his defense of the unconventional belief in biological transmutation.

Kervran was born in Quimper, Finistère. He had received a degree as a physics engineer in 1925. In WWII he was part of the French Resistance. He was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Director of Conferences of the Paris University, Member of Conseil d'Hygiene de la Seine, a Member of the Commission du Conseil Supérieur de la Recherche Scientifique. He was the recognised expert on radiation poisoning for the French government since 1945. His use of the word transmutation led his scientific work to be associated with alchemy and alienated him from the majority of mainstream scientific community. The most readable English introduction to his work can be found inThe Secret Life of Plants in a chapter called "Alchemists in the garden".

To support his claims of biological transmutation, Louis Kervran cited several prior reports and conducted his own experiments. A French Navy study observed that Sahara oilfield workers excreted a daily average of 320 mg more calcium than they ingested without bone decalcification occurring.