Jan Gösta Waldenström and His World - The Life and Work of a Giant in Science, Medicine and Humanity

Jan Waldenström (1906-1996) was the leading Swedish internist of the twentieth century. The first chapter of the book presents his remarkable family including five generations of physicians. Born in Stockholm, we follow JW to medical school at Uppsala University during 1924-33. In 1934-5, he spent a year in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Hans Fischer in Munich. In 1937, he defended a landmark thesis on acute intermittent porphyria. As 'Docent' (assistant professor) in Uppsala, he discovered two new diseases in 1943. In 1944-5, he spent 7 months in the US commissioned by the Swedish Health Board. This started friendships with leading colleagues and scientists. With time, JW fostered a worldwide network of contacts and became a most influential international star. But this was just the beginning. 
The book follows Waldenström's remarkable career including his description of chronic active hepatitis as a new disease, his introduction of nuclear medicine in Sweden, his pioneering of the concept of the concept of poly- and monoclonal gammopathies, and many more highly significant achievements. His legacy is emphasized by Waldenström lectures, Waldenström Prizes, and by the International Waldenström's Macroglobulinemia Foundation, IWMF, and the Bing Center for Waldenström's macroglobulinemia at the Dana Farber Institute of Cancer Institute of the Harvard University in Boston. And  now, not least, by this comprehensive biography.


Frank Wollheim attended medical school in Lund and was an undergraduate medical student in Malmö, where Jan Waldenström was a charismatic teacher. He accepted an invitation to start work in Waldenström's department in 1959, selecting gammopathies as his field of research, soon presenting evidence for a heredity factoring what is now named common variegated hypogammaglobulinemia. From 1963, he worked as an instructor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota on polyclonal and monoclonal gammopathies, in particular IgAand IgM. Back in Malmö, from 1966 he spent two years at the Department of Clinical Chemistry and defended his Ph.D. thesis there in 1968. Once more in the department of Dr. Waldenström, he became a specialist in internal medicine in 1968 and, in 1969, in rheumatology. From 1972 to 1882, he was the Director of the Division of Rheumatology in the department. In 1982, he was an appointed professor and a chairman of the independent Department of Rheumatology in Lund, where he continues to work as the emeritus professor.