Karl Oskar Medin

Karl Oskar Medin was a Swedish pediatrician, born at Axberg in the Orebro region on 14 August 1847 and died in Stockholm on 24 December 1927. He is best remembered for his study of poliomyelitis, the condition sometimes called the Heine-Medin disease, which carries his name together with that of the physician Jakob Heine. Medin was the first to describe the epidemic character of infantile paralysis. He studied at Uppsala and Stockholm and took his medical doctorate at Uppsala University in 1880. In 1883 he was made extraordinary professor at the Karolinska Institute and in 1884 became its professor of paediatrics, a chair he held until he became professor emeritus in 1914. Beyond polio he influenced the study of epidemic meningitis, infant scurvy and tuberculosis in children. After his death he was elected to the Polio Hall of Fame in Warm Springs, Georgia, dedicated in January 1958.