Corneille Jean-François Heymans, a Belgian scientist, conducted research in the field of respiratory and cardiovascular systems that produced new knowledge about the way breathing is regulated. His work won him the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1938.

Born in Ghent, Belgium, Heymans was the eldest of six sons of Jan-Frans Heymans, a noted pharmacologist who founded the J. F. Heymans Institute of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Ghent. As a youngster, Heymans watched the construction of the institute laboratory and helped his father take care of the animals that were used there. He and his father were to become a scientific team of considerable reputation--one of the few father-son scientific teams in history.

Heymans' career was delayed by four years of service as a field artillery officer in the Belgian Army during World War I. His performance won him the Belgian War Cross...