Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon who had developed improved surgical methods to connect blood vessels in the context of organ transplantation. In 1908 he collaborated with the American Charles Claude Guthrie to attempt to graft the head of one dog on an intact second dog; the grafted head showed some reflexes early on but deteriorated quickly and the animal was killed after a few hours. Carrel's work on organ transplantation later earned a Nobel Prize; Guthrie was probably excluded because of this controversial work on head transplantation.