The Nobel Prize and otolaryngology: 'Papa Gunnar's' promotion of his peers Gustav Killian and Themistocles Gluck.

OBJECTIVES

This study is part of a larger project investigating the enactment of excellence in medicine, with a focus on the Nobel Prize. It takes a closer look at two promising candidates for the Prize in the 1920s and 1930s, Gustav Killian and Themistocles Gluck, and aims at reconstructing their Nobel careers as well as taking Gunnar Holmgren's role as a nominator and evaluator behind the curtains into account.

METHOD

Besides the files collected at the Nobel Archive, the paper is based on a review of scientific publications and ergo-biographical sketches.

RESULTS

An analysis of Nobel Prize nominations and evaluations offer a unique perspective to study aspects of the history of otolaryngology.

CONCLUSION

Using original files in the archive of the Nobel committee for physiology or medicine in Sweden, this historical vignette explores judgments of scientific innovation and performance in the history of otolaryngology during the first half of the 20th century. This study shows that Gunnar Holmgren, the founder of Acta Oto-Laryngologica in 1918, repeatedly put forward scholars within the field as prime contenders for the award.