[Hugo Toll - physician, author, and health debater with firm views].
The Swedish physician Hugo Toll (1858-1943) was brought up as the son of a farmer in mid-Sweden. He was a talented young medical student at the University of Uppsala. After finishing his studies Hugo Toll spent some years as a surgeon in the US, working in Minnesota. Before settling down again in Sweden Toll toured many European countries to increase his knowledge in medical matters and public health issues. In his laborous years of work he spent time in Stockholm, running a private practice, and later on as a headmaster at Ersta School of Nursing, outside Stockholm. Through many years Hugo Toll devoted much time and efforts to writing and lecturing on public health, healthy lifestyle matters, and other topics related to medicine. As many other authors of this time, he also included views based on racial biology and the positive health selection of future parents. At this time some Swedish physicians were more or less openly committed to Nazi ideology, such as Ake Berglund, Herman Lundborg and Gösta Häggqvist. Other physicians were never members of any Nazi party, or did not see themselves as believers in any similar ideology. However, in their lectures and writings, a mixture of ideas upon public health were revealed, some of them also related to Nazi ideology. My impression is that Hugo Toll, although an elderly man and almost blind in the 1930's, was one of many Swedish physicians and debaters with ideas that other, more ideologically determined physicians with strong political views could make use of. Therefore, in current times we can learn from the experience of Hugo Toll that physicians with strong beliefs in public health and a healthy lifestyle can provide arguments that others can use in a different context for darker purposes.
Nilsson
Peter M
PM
Department for the History of Medicine, University of Lund.
D005053:Eugenics / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D028683:National Socialism / Q000266:history; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history*; D013548:Sweden