Herman Bernhard Lundborg (April 7, 1868 in

Väse Väse is a locality situated in Karlstad Municipality, Värmland County Värmland County (''Värmlands län'') is a county or '' län'' in west central Sweden. It borders the Swedish counties of Dalarna, Örebro and Västra Götaland, as well ...

Värmland Värmland () also known as Wermeland, is a ''landskap'' (historical province) in west-central Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Dalsland, Dalarna, Västmanland, and Närke, and is bounded by Norway in the west. Latin name versions are ...

, Sweden – May 9, 1943 in

Östhammar Östhammar is a locality and the seat of Östhammar Municipality, Uppsala County, Sweden with 4,534 inhabitants in 2010. Today Östhammar Municipality is a part of Uppsala County, but the area has historically been a part of Stockholm County. Hi ...

Uppland Uppland () is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. On the small un ...

, Sweden) was a Swedish

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and a race biologist.

Biography

He graduated in

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

at the

Karolinska Institutet The Karolinska Institute (KI; sv, Karolinska Institutet; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden. The Karolinska Institute is consist ...

in 1895, and received his doctorate at the

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance durin ...

in 1903. He also

habilitated Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

there that year for

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial p ...

and

neurology Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...

, and in 1915 for racial research and

racial biology Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies can be more ex ...

. For his doctoral dissertation, Lundborg researched one of the genetic

progressive myoclonus epilepsies Progressive Myoclonic Epilepsies (PME) are a rare group of inherited neurodegenerative diseases characterized by myoclonus, resistance to treatment, and neurological deterioration. The cause of PME depends largely on the type of PME. Most PMEs are ...

first described by Heinrich Unverricht in 1891. Besides giving an account of the disease, he traced an affected family back to the 18th century, an analysis unique for that time. He concluded that the family had genetically degenerated because of "unwise marriages". The study has been described as "of considerable historic interest in

human genetics Human genetics is the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population gen ...

". Over the years, the form of epilepsy became known as the Unverricht–Lundborg disease. He was on the editorial board of the ''

Hereditas ''Hereditas'' (not to be confused with another journal called ''Heredity'') is a scientific journal concerning genetics. It has been published since 1920 by Mendelska sällskapet i Lund (Mendelian Society of Lund). In its long history it has publi ...

'' journal, founded 1920, with the scope on genetics. Lundborg was strongly involved with the ideology of

racial hygiene The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...

. In the beginning of the 20th century, the idea that

eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...

could improve the biological basis of society was widely held by academics and lawmakers, particularly in northern Europe and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. In 1922 Sweden established a eugenic governmental agency, the State Institute of Racial Biology, of which Lundborg was appointed as the head. Under his leadership, the institute began gathering copious statistics and photographs to map the racial make-up of about 100,000 Swedish people. The Swedish writer Maja Hagerman has written a biography on Herman Lundborg and made a documentary about his racial research in Laponia.

In the media

In the novel 'The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared' by the Swedish author Jonas Jonasson, dr. Lundborg is portraited in chapter 4.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lundborg, Herman Bernhard 1868 births 1943 deaths People from Karlstad Municipality Swedish eugenicists Swedish neurologists Burials at Uppsala old cemetery