Torsten Sjogren

Karl Gustaf Torsten Sjögren ( [ˈɧœˈɡrɪən] ; born January 30, 1896 in Södertälje ; † July 27, 1974 in Gothenburg ) was a Swedish psychiatrist and geneticist . He is considered a pioneer in Swedish psychiatry. The Sjögren-Larsson syndrome was named after him (together with Tage Larsson ) , which is a form of mental retardation in combination with progressive spastic paraplegia and ichthyosis , which occurs almost exclusively in Sweden. Its role in spreading National Socialist ideas in the form of racial doctrine and eugenics is particularly criticized .

biography

Sjögren was born in 1896 as the son of Vilhelm Sjögren and his wife Ingeborg, b. Gustafsson was born in Södertälje. He put 1914 in Stockholm , the High School and took in the same year at the Stockholm University , a medical school on. He completed his studies in 1918 and was approved in 1925 when he obtained his license . Also in 1925 he married Yvonne Petre (* 1892), daughter of Torsten Petre and his wife Jeanne, b. Fonzes Lafoux. From 1925 to 1926 he was employed as an assistant doctor at the Neurological Clinic in Stockholm. In 1926 he worked as an assistant doctor at the State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala . In 1927 he got a job as a hospital doctor at the University Clinic in Lund . In 1931 he became chief physician there . At the University of Lund , he received his doctorate in both medicine and psychiatry in 1931 . From 1932 to 1935 he was chief physician and medical director of the psychiatric institution in Lillhagen north of Gothenburg and from 1935 to 1945 chief physician of the psychiatric department of the hospital "Sahlgrenska Sjukhuset" in Gothenburg, in whose development he played a decisive role. In 1945 he was finally appointed to the chair of psychiatry at the Karolinska Institute , which he held until his retirement in 1961. At the same time he was chief physician at the Karolinska University Hospital there . Until his death, Sjögren was in his second marriage to Göta Petersson (* 1919), daughter of Birger Petersson and his wife Nelly, geb. Johansson, married.

Memberships

Sjögren was close to the National Socialist race theory and represented Sweden in the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations (IFEO) , of which he had been a member since 1933. From 1936 to 1948 he was president of the organization. In 1935 he joined the International Human Heredity Committee and remained a member until 1949. In 1946 he became a member of the Scientific Council of the Swedish Medical Association (Medicinalstyrelsen) and in 1951 a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences .

Note

The psychiatrist Torsten Sjögren should not be confused with the ophthalmologist Henrik Sjögren , after whom the similar-sounding Sjögren syndrome is named.

literature

• Stefan Kühl : The International of Racists. The rise and fall of the international eugenics and racial hygiene movement in the twentieth century. Campus, Frankfurt a. M. / New York 1997.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Introduction to Swedish - A guide to pronounciation ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( Stockholm University of Commerce ) 
2. ↑ Sjogren, KG Torsten . In: Sten Lagerström, Elvan Sölvén (ed.): Vem är det. Svensk biografisk handbok 1969 . 29th year PA Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1968, ISSN  0347-3341 , p. 866 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
3. ^ Membership and Organization of the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations. In: Eugenical news. XV, No. 1, 1930, pp. 11-15; A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics, Appendix II. Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore 1934, pp. 522-526.
4. ^ Stefan Kühl: For the Betterment of the Race: The Rise and Fall of the International Movement for Eugenics and Racial Hygiene. Translated by Lawrence Schofer, Palgrave Macmillan, New York (NY) 2013, ISBN 978-1-137-28612-3 , p. 107.
5. ^ Martino Ruggieri, Ignacio Pascual-Castroviejo: Sjögren-Larsson Syndrome. In: Martino Ruggieri, Ignacio Pascual-Castroviejo, Concezio Di Rocco (Eds.): Neurocutaneous Disorders: Phakomatoses & Hamartoneoplastic Syndromes. Springer, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-211-69500-5 , p. 615.