Foto Allvar Gullstrand. Photo Bilder i Syd

Bildtext: The Swedish ophthalmologist Allvar Gullstrand was entirely self-taught in the fields covering his most important work geometric and physiological optics. The basis of the science he developed was laid in 1890 in his thesis Contribution to the theory of astigmatism.

The complete proof of this theory is found in the following three works: General theory of monochromatic aberrations and their immediate significance for ophthalmology, 1900, which received awards from the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Medical Association; The true optical image, 1906 and The optical image in heterogeneous media and the dioptrics of the human crystalline lens), in 1908.

Gullstrand was an honorary Doctor of Philosophy of the Universities of Uppsala, Jena and Dublin, and a member of a number of Swedish and foreign scientific societies. In 1911 he received the Nobel Prize for his work on the dioptrics of the eye. He was member of the Nobel Physics Committee of the Swedish Academy of Sciences (1911-1929), and its Chairman (1922-1929). In 1927 he was awarded the Graefe Medal of the Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft.