Karl Gustaf Torsten Sjögren ( , ; 30 January 1896 – 27 July 1974) was a Swedish

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

and

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic process ...

Biography

He was born in

Södertälje Södertälje ( , ) is a Urban areas in Sweden, city in Stockholm County, Sweden and seat of Södertälje Municipality. It is also a part of Stockholm urban area, Greater Stockholm Metropolitan Area. As of 2020, it has 73,872 inhabitants. Södert� ...

and died in

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

. In

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, he graduated as a licentiate of medicine in 1925, and in 1931 he became

doctor of medicine A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin language, Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of ph ...

and a

docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

of psychiatry at

Lund university Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...

. Torsten Sjögren was the chairman of the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations in the late 1930s. According to Stefan Kühl in ''For the Betterment of the Race'' (originally ''Die Internationale der Rassiten'' 1997), Sjögren was submissive to the Nazi party with their increasingly controversial views on eugenics, which contributed to the disintegration of the organization in the latter half of the 1930s. Torsten Sjögren was professor of psychiatry at the

Karolinska Institute The Karolinska Institute (KI; ; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden and one of the foremost medical research institutes globally ...

from 1945 to 1961. He was elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

in 1951.

Sjögren–Larsson syndrome Sjögren–Larsson syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive form of ichthyosis with neurological symptoms.Freedberg, et al. (2003). ''Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine'' (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill. .James, William; Berger, Timothy; Elston, ...

is named after him (along with Tage Larsson) as well as Marinesco–Sjögren syndrome.

Scientific work and reputation

Sjögren's 1931 thesis on juvenile amaurotic idiocy (the disorder now called juvenile neuronal ceroid-lipofuscinosis, or Batten disease) combined pedigree analysis with post-mortem

histochemistry Immunohistochemistry is a form of immunostaining. It involves the process of selectively identifying antigens in cells and tissue, by exploiting the principle of antibodies binding specifically to antigens in biological tissues. Albert Hewett ...

and proposed the first Mendelian model for the disease. Throughout the 1930s he argued that many forms of

intellectual disability Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability (in the United Kingdom), and formerly mental retardation (in the United States), Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010).Archive is a generalized neurodevelopmental ...

were genetically distinct entities and should be classified by inheritance pattern rather than symptom profile. This programme culminated in 1957 with his

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

‐length paper on Sjögren-Larsson syndrome, in which he and dermatologist Tage Larsson linked congenital

ichthyosis Ichthyosis is a family of genetic disorder, genetic skin disorders characterized by Xeroderma, dry, Scleroderma, thickened, scaly skin. The more than 20 types of ichthyosis range in severity of symptoms, outward appearance, underlying genetic cau ...

, spastic diplegia and oligophrenia to a single autosomal recessive gene—an interpretation confirmed decades later when fatty aldehyde dehydrogenase (FALDH)

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, ...

s were identified. At the

(1945–1961) Sjögren established Sweden's first Department of Medical Genetics, introduced cytogenetic screening of institutionalised children, and launched a twin registry that became a cornerstone of Nordic

behavioural genetics Behavioural genetics, also referred to as behaviour genetics, is a field of scientific research that uses genetic methods to investigate the nature and origins of individual differences in behaviour. While the name "behavioural genetics" ...

research. He also co-authored the description of Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome (1962), extending the clinical spectrum of congenital

ataxia Ataxia (from Greek α- negative prefix+ -τάξις rder= "lack of order") is a neurological sign consisting of lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements that can include gait abnormality, speech changes, and abnormalities in e ...

Eugenics and later assessment

Between 1935 and 1939 Sjögren chaired the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations, steering it toward a "heredity-centred public-health agenda". According to the historian Stefan Kühl, his willingness to accommodate German racial hygienists—while personally rejecting

anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

—contributed to the federation's collapse in 1939. Swedish commentators of the 1950s regarded his

eugenic Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the ferti ...

advocacy as an

anachronism An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...

, yet psychiatric-genetics textbooks continue to cite his early family studies as methodological benchmarks.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sjogren, Torsten 1896 births 1974 deaths Swedish psychiatrists Swedish geneticists Academic staff of the Karolinska Institute Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences People from Södertälje