The Nobel Prize and otolaryngology: ‘Papa Gunnar’s’ promotion of his peers Gustav Killian and Themistocles Gluck

Abstract

Objectives: This study is part of a larger project investigating the enactment of excellence in medicine, with a focus on the Nobel Prize. It takes a closer look at two promising candidates for the Prize in the 1920s and 1930s, Gustav Killian and Themistocles Gluck, and aims at reconstructing their Nobel careers as well as taking Gunnar Holmgren’s role as a nominator and evaluator behind the curtains into account.

Method: Besides the files collected at the Nobel Archive, the paper is based on a review of scientific publications and ergo-biographical sketches.

Results: An analysis of Nobel Prize nominations and evaluations offer a unique perspective to study aspects of the history of otolaryngology.

Conclusion: Using original files in the archive of the Nobel committee for physiology or medicine in Sweden, this historical vignette explores judgments of scientific innovation and performance in the history of otolaryngology during the first half of the 20th century. This study shows that Gunnar Holmgren, the founder of Acta Oto-Laryngologica in 1918, repeatedly put forward scholars within the field as prime contenders for the award.

Keywords:

• Gunnar Holmgren
• Gustav Killian
• history of otolaryngology
• Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine
• surgery
• Themistocles Gluck

Acknowledgments

Files on Gustav Killian and Themistocles Gluck in the Nobel Prize archive were kindly provided by the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, Medicinska Nobelinstitutet, Solna Sweden. All translations from Swedish and German into English were done by the authors. Parts of the paper were presented by NH at a lecture at the Department for History of Science, Harvard University on 28 September 2015. Photos of G. Killian and Th. Gluck are courtesy of the Institute of the History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine, Berlin, Charité.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.