Ivar Wickman

Otto Ivar Wickman (10 July 1872, Lund – 20 April 1914, Saltsjöbaden) was a Swedish physician, who discovered in 1907 the epidemic and contagious character of poliomyelitis Son of a merchant, Wickman began his medical studies at Lund University in 1890, and passed the state medical examination in 1901 at the Karolinska Institute at Solna near Stockholm. In 1905 he published his doctoral thesis on poliomyelitis “Poliomyelitis acuta” in German, and ... more

Otto Ivar Wickman (10 July 1872, Lund – 20 April 1914, Saltsjöbaden) was a Swedish physician, who discovered in 1907 the epidemic and contagious character of poliomyelitis Son of a merchant, Wickman began his medical studies at Lund University in 1890, and passed the state medical examination in 1901 at the Karolinska Institute at Solna near Stockholm. In 1905 he published his doctoral thesis on poliomyelitis “Poliomyelitis acuta” in German, and the doctoral exam in 1906 qualified for the post of a docent for neurology at the Karolinska Institute, besides working as a district physician in the Östermalm district in Stockholm from 1907 to 1909. As a pupil of pediatrician Karl Oskar Medin, whom he held in high esteem, Wickman predominantly devoted himself to the studies of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis). Besides his thesis, his 1907 publication Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Heine-Medin’schen Krankheit has been rated as innovative. In the field of neurology he also published several... less