Frithiof Holmgren

1831–1897.

Doctor.

Frithiof Holmgren established Sweden's first physiological laboratory in 1862 and became the country's first professor of physiology at the age of 33. He was also a most prominent teacher at Uppsala University.

As a scientist, he became internationally known with the discovery of the retinal current in the eye.

The studies of color blindness made Holmgren internationally famous and in 1874 he described his method of using different colored "sefir yarn dolls", the so-called wool yarn sample, to demonstrate color blindness.

The method was of great practical importance for people in signalling services, such as railway personnel and seafarers. A train accident in Lagerlunda in 1875 was suspected of a train driver not being able to distinguish between red and green. No one had thought that the colour vision could have an impact on railway staff.

The equipment used by Holmgren in the discovery of the retina lattural stream, i.e. the retina's electrical response to light impressions. The equipment consists of a mirror galvanometer and a light catcher with a clockwork that drives the mirror. Photo: Museum of Medicine in Uppsala.

Sefirgarn dolls for carrying out the test of colour vision developed by Holmgren and which became mandatory for all those who would be employed in rail and sea traffic. Photo: Museum of Medicine in Uppsala.

A more macabre study that Holmgren undertook focused on whether beheading was a painless method of execution. Holmgren was therefore present at four beheadings to investigate the method from a physiological point of view.

According to Holmgren, the case studies showed that beheading as a method met the requirements for a painless way of execution.

Holmgren also participated in the debates in Verdandi, and his radical stance appeared in his dictation to the protocol of the consistorio:

"I consider the freedom of thought as one of man's most precious privileges, and the university where the tenet of thought is not primarily, does not, in my view, fulfil its task. To educate the studying youth to thinking men, should, according to my understanding, be one of the university's main tasks.".

Frithiof Holmgren also emphasized the importance of physical education and formed the Students' Sharp Shooting Association, the Students' Gymnastics Association and was chairman of the folk dance association Philochoros and promoter in Uppsala swimming society. 

 

Burial site: 0125-1141

Image description: Frithiof Holmgren, unknown year. Photo: Unknown photographer / UUB. [The image is cropped]
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Robin Fåhræus

1888–1968.

Medicine professor, pathologist.

Robin Fåhræus was born in Stockholm and was professor of pathology from 1928 to 1955.

With its epochal examinations of the suspension stability of the red blood cells (ESR or sed rate), Fåhræus has reached international notoriety.

In his dissertation from 1921, The Suspension Stability of the blood, the speed with which the blood cells drop to the bottom of a test tube and the lowering reaction was described as a sensitive albeit unspecific indication of ongoing disease processes in the body.

Together with The Svedberg, Fåhræus contributed to the determination of the molecular mass of the haemoglobin.

Examples of his lifelong writing are the books Blod in the history of medicine (1924) and The History of Medicine (1944–1950).

Fåhræus, together with Anders Diös, pushed forward the restoration of the national hall at Uppsala Castle.

 

Burial site: 0112-0547

Image description: Robin Fåhraeus at University House, Uppsala 1955. Photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet. [The image is cropped]
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Adolph Murray

1751–1803.

Anatomist, surgeon.

Murray began studying at Uppsala University in 1764. Initially he devoted himself to botany, but was increasingly interested in anatomy and dissections.

His anatomy studies led in 1771 up to a dissertation he defended under Linnaeus' leadership. In 1772 Murray graduated as a medical doctor in Uppsala. After his dissertation, Murray began a training trip in Europe and was in 1774 appointed professor of anatomy at Uppsala University.

He returned to Uppsala in 1776 and entered his office. In 1778 Murray became Uppsala's first professor of surgery. In his scientific work, he published a number of dissertations, as well as many other writings.

A significant contribution in Swedish is the Dissertation on the progress of anatomy in more recent times, which formed his voluminous bureau speech in the academy of Sciences in 1794 when he became its chairman.

Page from lecture notes. Murray is the author. Photo: UUB.

Murray's amputation tools for soft parts and for cutting bones. The picture also shows a dissertation by Murray from 1798. Photo: Urban Josefsson, Medical History Museum.

At the Medical History Museum in Uppsala there is a unique collection of surgical and gynecological instruments collected by Adolph Murray. Letters between Murray and Linnaeus are preserved at Uppsala University.

 

Burial site: 0109-0461A

Image description: Adolph Murray, ca 1787–ca 1835. Engraver, Erik Åkerland. Photo: UUB. [The image is cropped]
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Hans Rosling

1948–2017.

Doctor, scientist and educator.

The first four years Hans Rosling lived in the district of Luthagen and then moved the family to the Svartbäcken district in Uppsala. After graduation, Rosling studied statistics and medicine at Uppsala University. The interest in public health science led, during a trip in Asia 1972, to a course in social medicine at St. Johns Medical College in Bangalore, India.

After a medical degree in 1975 and work as an AT-doctor in Hudiksvall, he trained further and acquired competence in the centre of Medicine at Uppsala University in 1977.

During the years 1979-1981 the spouses worked in Nacala Porto in northern Mozambique, where Hans was a district doctor and his wife, Agneta was midwife. In the Nacala district, an epidemic erupted in 1981, of a previously unknown spasmodic paralysis, with over 1 500 victims, whereof most women and children. The paralysis was linked to a highly poor and highly one-sided diet consisting of a toxic form of manioc (cassava).

Rosling described the disease in his doctoral thesis and named it Konzo. This means "bound bones" in the Congolese language where the disease was once described in 1938. During the 1980s, there were several outbreaks of Konzo in other African countries.

During the years 1983-1996, Rosling worked as a teacher and researcher at Uppsala University in collaboration with several universities in Africa and Asia. He was appointed in 1997 Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

in 1999 Rosling began lecturing with a new kind of animated bubble chart that showed the World's Socio-economic state and development over time. The program was called Trendalyzer and had been developed by his son and son's wife, with whom he co-founded the Gapminder Foundation.

The lectures made complicated statistics about the World's development comprehensible to the general public, decision makers and opinion-formers. The lectures spread through web and TV worldwide, and governments and organizations hired him as a lecturer and advisor.

Rosling devoted his professional life to global health, Global health problems, and how these are related to poverty. With the conviction that reason and knowledge improves the world and that we can eradicate extreme poverty and reduce CO2 emissions, Rosling pointed out that it is the richest billion of the earth's population that first and foremost must reduce CO2 emissions because they account for half of them.

Hans Rosling's memoirs How I Learned to understand the world, written together with the journalist Fanny Härgestam, was published posthumously in 2017 and Factfulness, written in collaboration with Ola and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, released in 2018.

 

Burial site: 0116-0836B

Image description: Hans Rosling, press Photo. Photo: Stefan Nilsson / Gapminder.org. [The image is cropped]
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Carl Peter Thunberg

1743–1828.

Botanist, physician.

In 1770, Carl Peter Thunberg, after studying with Carl Linnaeus, went on a nine-year journey abroad that began in the Netherlands. There Thunberg met the most prominent botanist of the time.

Thunberg then pursued medical studies in Paris before being the ship's doctor on a ship going from the Netherlands to Cape Town, to stay for three years to explore the area's nature. The studies were documented in Flora capensis (1-3, 1807 – 1813). Thunberg was the first to describe the flora in South Africa and has therefore been called the father of South African flora.

In 1775 Thunberg continued to Japan, where he collected material for his Flora japonica (1784). The work was epoch-making for the knowledge of Japan's plant world and Thunberg received the honorary name of Japan's Linnaeus.

Poster of Japanese Maple retrieved from Icones plantarum Japonicarum [Poster 5 part V, 1805]. Photo: Uppsala University Library.

Illustration (frontispiece) from Voyages de C. P. Thunberg au Japon [...], tome I, Paris, An. IV [1796]. Photo: Uppsala University Library.

In 1779 Thunberg returned to Uppsala and succeeded in 1784 Carl Linnaeus the younger as professor of medicine and botany.

Thunberg also published the Journey in Europe, Africa, Asia, established the years 1770–1779 (1-4, 1788 – 1793). The collections from the trips were deposited at the University library.

Carl Peter Thunberg's estate Tunaberg, north of the Svartbäcken creek in Uppsala, where he lived the rest of his long life, was known for his prestigious horticulture well into the 1940s.

 

Burial site: 0101-0103

Image description : Carl Peter Thunberg, 1801. Engraver Anton Ulrik Berndes. Photo: UUB. [ The image is cropped ]
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