Gösta Forssell 1921-1950.

Abstract

When GÖSTA FORSSELL, pioneer and organizer, scientist and teacher, healer and lover of mankind, passed away on Monday, the 13th of November, after several months of increasing heart failure Sweden lost one of the most noble of Her sons. His figure as a leader, his innate living strength and his indefatigable energy were, no doubt, inheritances from the generations of Dalecarlian and Helsingland farmers, warriors and clergy authoritative and resolute forefathers from which he could trace his descent right back from the sixteenth century. FORSSELL’S richly facetted personality, his burning bent on research and marked scientific powers, his constructive imagination as well as his organizing capabilities were probably those qualities which caused him, whilst still in his years of study, to throw himself into an entirely new branch of medicine radiology which the discoveries of roentgen and radium rays had created. His powers of bold intuition enabled him to realize the enormous developmental possibilities of this science and its future importance for medicine. As a young medical student he served his apprenticeship under the first roentgen pioneer in Sweden, THOR STENBECK. About this time (1899) he took part in the first curative treatment in the world of a case of cancer of the skin. One hundred and fifty treatments extending over some nine months were required in all for the cure. The patient was demonstrated nearly 30 years later free from symptoms at the second International Congress of Radiology in Stockholm. One may perhaps best appreciate the progress of development when I state that a similar case in these days would be cleared up by a single treatment lasting but a minute. The outlines of FORSSELL’S radiological activities are as follows.Assistant in theRoentgenDepartment of the University Hospital of Upsala, 1902 Head of the Roentgen Institute of the Serafimerlasarettet 1906 1941. Director of the »Radiumhemet» (Radium Home) 191