09.12.2019: In 1952, surgeon Roar Strøm (Figure 1) published an article detailing a case of illness in a 32-year-old man (1). Strøm had operated on the man the previous year for recurrent dyspeptic pain and discomfort. This is one of the first descriptions of the rare syndrome now known as Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (2–5) (see Box 1). We have recently confirmed the diagnosis with modern morphological techniques (6). Box 1 A concise summary of Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (ZES) (4, 5) Rare syndrome caused by one or more gastrin-producing tumours, so-called gastrinomas. The tumours are most often located in...

20.06.2019: Our interest in this story arose in relation to the article on the psychiatrist Augusta Rasmussen (1895–1979) (1). While working on that article, we constantly came across the name of Ragnhild Vogt Hauge, a person unknown to us. We became curious about who she was. Her story helps elucidate questions related to World War II and the legal purge of doctors in its aftermath. Material and method We have used the Retriever media archive, the National Library's digital archive bokhylla.no, the digital archives of the Aftenposten daily, and the following files in the National Archives of Norway: the...

30.10.2018: In 1923, the five-year-old Public Health Association published a folder with ten large-format posters, called House Maxims for Mothers and Children (Figure 1). Their objective was to promote child health through inculcation of a healthy way of life. The folder included an appeal from the physiologist Sophus Torup (1861–1937), chairman of the Public Health Association's academic committee. He hoped that the posters would 'find their way into all homes', he wrote. Professor Torup pointed to the major problem that illness during childhood could represent, and that this could be the origin of...

26.06.2018: In 1934, senior registrar Augusta Rasmussen (1895–1979) published a study of 77 cases involving sexual offences. She found that the women involved had suffered no mental injury from the abuse. In 1947, she published a study of the intelligence level of 310 Norwegian women who had formed relationships with German soldiers during the occupation. She found that nearly all of them were more or less retarded. Her conclusions, however, were not scientifically valid. Here we present Rasmussen's biography, academic background and scientific activity. In the autumn of 1932, senior registrar Gunhild...

30.10.2017: We like to believe that progress in the field of medicine is achieved through rational and scientific developments. This is not always the case. Many of our most frequently used drugs were discovered by pure chance, among them several antiepileptics. Many significant advances in the field of medicine have been based on mere coincidences, such as Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928. This is only one of many examples of drugs that were discovered by pure chance, for example when drugs are found to be effective against something completely different to what they were intended for...

20.12.2016: Hereditary haemochromatosis is a congenital disorder which affects the regulation of iron metabolism thus causing increased gut absorption of iron and a gradual build-up of pathologic iron deposits in the liver and other internal organs, joint capsules and the skin (1). From the age of 40 – 50 the iron overload may cause serious disease, which in its final stages is characterised by liver cirrhosis, diabetes and bronze-coloured skin, also referred to as «bronze diabetes». The prevalence in the ethnic Norwegian population of homozygous and heterozygous inheritance is 0.8 % and 12 – 15 %...

08.11.2016: Today there are Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics in every regional health authority. Their work is based on several laws, including the Health Research Act, the Personal Data Act and the Patients’ Rights Act (1), in addition to international guidelines on health research, like the Declaration of Helsinki (2). The Committees preapprove research projects involving human subjects and human biological data, and projects that use health data that has been collected through clinical practice or research (3). In their work, the Committees assess the risk that research...

05.07.2016: In 1833, Bergen Mental Hospital – popularly referred to as «Mentalen» – came into operation. As its name clearly suggests, it was meant to be, and in Bergen was also considered to be, a real therapeutic institution for people with mental illnesses. This notwithstanding, in the history of Norwegian psychiatry Mentalen has been virtually ignored. Or more correctly, it has been placed in the category of «bedlam» or «madhouse», meaning a pre-medical confinement facility and thus the opposite of an asylum. This shift in category happened already in the late 1840s and has since formed the basis for...

15.12.2015: Nine renal transplants were performed on humans at Harvard and Peter Bent Brigham hospitals between 1951 and 1953, three using living and six using cadaver donors. Four of these kidneys secreted urine 37 to 180 days before they were rejected. All the patients died. In their report David Hume (1917 – 73) and co-workers concluded that «renal homotransplantation has no place in the therapy of human patients at this time» (1). In 1954 Joseph Murray (1919 – 2012) transplanted a kidney between two identical twins at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, USA (2). The recipient lived for 8 years...

10.12.2013: Tor Aas Christiansen (1917 – 1981) (Figure 1) commenced his hospital career in Porsgrunn in 1949. After a brief period at the Coastal Hospital in Hagevik he went to work at the Department of Pathology at the National Hospital in Oslo, and in the years 1954 – 1963 he worked at hospitals in Sarpsborg and in Rogaland and Aker Hospital. He had thus acquired a solid training in general surgery and pathology when he was employed as Senior Registrar at Drammen Hospital in 1963. In 1965 he was appointed Senior Consultant at Kongsberg Hospital. He continued working there until he died suddenly in 1981...

10.12.2013: A hundred years have passed since women in Norway were granted the right to vote. At that time the lives of women were not only characterised by the lack of political co-determination; the lack of access to contraceptives and lack of control over their own pregnancies represented a major problem. Giving birth to an «illegitimate» child usually led to social exclusion and loss of paid work for the unmarried woman, who therefore chose to conceal her pregnancy and give birth in secrecy. For this reason the extent of infanticide is uncertain. According to official statistics, the incidence of...

10.12.2013: «According to the preliminary investigation by the local police, the child is said to have been born on Friday the 14th of this month between 11 and 12 at night. The child’s body was found in the bed at the home of the mother by Jan OE and Josef HE, whose wives had received a confession from the maid that she had given birth to a child in secret. The accused later told the police that when she came to her senses after the birth, she saw the child lying with its head between her knees, and the legs (of the child) up against her genital area with the umbilical cord and afterbirth attached. She...

10.12.2013: Jacob Aall (Fig. 1) was from a well-to-do shipping and merchant family in Porsgrunn. He graduated with a degree in theology in 1795, but in 1799 used the money he had inherited from his late father to buy an ironworks; Nes Ironworks at Holt near Tvedestrand became his home and workplace for the rest of his life. He had a happy family life there with his wife and seven children. The war of 1807 – 1814 brought with it a kind of «political awakening». Aall realised the need for Norway to have its own institutions, and he became the largest private contributor to a Norwegian university. At...

03.09.2013: High-dose therapy with autologous stem cell support (HDT) for lymphomas has been given in Norway since 1987. The therapy consists of intensive chemotherapy and/or total body irradiation in such high doses that it entails a life-threatening loss of healthy haematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow. In order to conserve future bone marrow function, stem cells are harvested from the patient before the high-dose therapy is given, and are frozen and reinfused some days later (Fig. 1). From 1987 to 1995 the high-dose therapy itself consisted of total body irradiation followed by chemotherapy in...

11.12.2012: The struggle over the prohibition of alcohol dominated political life in Norway from the end of World War I over a period of nearly ten years. It proved fatal to three governments, had a decisive effect on two parliamentary elections, gave rise to two referendums, and filled the newspapers, where it was discussed with more vehemence than any other issue since the dissolution of the union with Sweden (1). The prohibition issue was not new, however. Throughout parts of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th, production of distilled spirits had been prohibited. The liberalisation of the...

11.12.2012: The prohibition era dawned in December 1916 as a temporary measure to ensure public order during World War I. At that time, the government introduced a ban on the sales of alcohol for purposes of indulgence over the Christmas season, but exempted spirits intended for technical, medical and scientific use. In order to obtain spirits legally for the Christmas celebration, people would need to contact their doctor, who was entitled to provide them on prescription. The 1916 Christmas prohibition was extended twice by royal decree during the winter of 1917. In May 1917 it turned into a temporary...

26.06.2012: The first committees of research ethics were established in the mid-1960s, in the US and elsewhere, as a countermeasure to unethical research practices. It was recognised that leaving these assessments to the researchers themselves provided an inadequate safeguard (1). Norway, however, was different. The immediate background for looking at the issue of establishing committees of research ethics was the recommendation in the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki to the effect that «any experiment involving human beings (...) must be submitted to an especially appointed, independent committee for review...

27.03.2012: Up towards the ceiling vault of the Nidaros Cathedral, a number of artworks are hidden from public view. Many of the stone sculptures portray mythological animals and other scary creatures. In such company, one would imagine that human faces were also intended to evoke fear and anguish. Do they depict people with diseases? In the winter of 2011, parts of the Nidaros Cathedral were cleaned and renovated for the first time sine the mid-1920s (1, 2). This took place in the octagon, the octagonal space erected over the spot where Saint Olav is believed to be buried. A six-storey scaffolding...

06.03.2012: From the 1950s until today, an increasing emphasis has been placed on assessment of patients’ own experiences. In this article we will provide an overview of this development, elucidated with the aid of hitherto unpublished patient data from the 1950s. Assessments made by patients during this period have previously been unavailable. Today, legislation states that patients are entitled to have a say in the treatment they receive, in somatic as well as psychiatric institutions. However, it was not until well into the 20th century that the issue of how patients perceived their treatment in...

08.04.2011: In the summer of 1847, the 29-year old Danish doctor Peter Anton Schleisner (1818 – 1900) (1) (fig 1) sailed to the Westman Islands off the south coast of Iceland. He had received detailed instructions from the Danish authorities. The aim was to combat the epidemic of neonatal tetanus (referred to as ginklofi) that was ravaging the islands. This article describes the background for Schleisner being shipped off to Iceland, what he did there, the outcome of the measures and how his efforts were assessed by his contemporaries and by posterity. The challenge Tetanus in newborn babies is caused by...

08.04.2011: 2010 was the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth. Frédéric François Chopin, christened Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was born in Żelazowa Wola, a small town near Warsaw. The date of birth has not been definitely established. A birth certificate has been found that gives the date 22 February 1810 (1, 2), but Chopin himself always gave his date of birth as 1 March. He died on 17 October 1849 in Paris, 39 years old. Chopin’s musical talent was apparent early. He was considered as a child prodigy and started to compose when he was only seven years old (3, 4). The first polonaises in B major and G...

18.12.2008: In June 1940, the Norwegian Navy had 16 vessels, with approximately 600 men, stationed in Great Britain under Norwegian command. The Navy had suffered heavy losses during the military actions in Norway, and needed rebuilding and remanning virtually from scratch. By the summer of 1940 naval vessels had entered service in British waters. The number of naval servicemen increased considerably during the next years, and the Navy became the largest branch of the Norwegian armed forces in England during the war. By the end of the war, in 1945, there were 52 vessels with a personnel strength of 7 366...