Ivar Wickman

Otto Ivar Wickman (10 July 1872 in Lund – 20 April 1914 in 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 . 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 articles. After 1909 Wickman spent more and more time abroad. He worked at the institute of pathology and anatomy in Helsingfors and did psychiatric studies in Paris. Repeatedly having to cope with financial difficulties, he spent his last two years in Breslau and Straßburg, in both places working as an assistant to Adalbert Czerny, the co-founder of modern pediatrics. At the age of 41 he took his life by a shot in the heart in April 1914.

The reasons for his suicide are not known, since Wickman did not leave a farewell letter or any other notes. Colleagues report that the failure of his application for the post of Professor of Pediatrics at the Karolinska Institute, which, until 1914, Medin had held, was a heavy blow for him. . When the position was opened for applicants in 1912, Wickman was convinced that he had great chances of becoming successor to his mentor. The commission of the Stockholm Faculty of Medicine, however, preferred one of his two co-applicants in December 1913. On the one hand the members of the commission blamed Wickman for not having shown sufficient diversity in his research work: as many as half of his 22 scientific publications were dealing with polio. On the other hand there was the serious reproach that he had not given a public audit lecture, which was part of the application procedure. He had reported sick because of his "insomnia“ and only submitted a sick note by Professor Czerny, who acknowledged his pupil’s good didactic capacities. There is much reason to assume that Wickman eschewed the public lecture because of his stuttering, which considerably hampered his fluency of speech.

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