Frederik Holst (physician)

Frederik Holst was a Norwegian medical doctor, born at Holmestrand in Vestfold on 14 August 1791 and dead on 4 June 1871, who is regarded as an important pioneer of medicine in Norway. He took his school-leaving examination at Oslo Cathedral School in 1810 and studied at the University of Copenhagen, where his medical diploma rested on a doctoral thesis about radesyke, the Latin lepra norvegica, a skin disease that was then common and is now extinct. From 1817 he served as city physician in Christiania, today's Oslo, and from 1824 until 1865 he was Professor of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Hygiene at the University of Christiania. His writings influenced the treatment of prisoners and of patients with mental disorders. With Michael Skjelderup he started Eyrt, the first Norwegian medical journal, in 1826, and he was among the founders of the Norwegian Medical Society in 1833. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1831 and received several Norwegian and Swedish orders of knighthood.