| Anton Julius Carlson | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 29, 1875 Sweden |
| Died | September 2, 1956 |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Physiology |
| Institutions | University of Chicago American Physiological Society AAAS National Academy of Sciences |
| Alma mater | Stanford University |
Anton Julius Carlson (January 29, 1875–September 2, 1956) was a Swedish American physiologist. Carlson was Chairman of the Physiology Department at the University of Chicago from 1916 until 1940.
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Carlson was born the son of Carl Jacobson and Hedvig Andersdotter in Svarteborg, in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. He came to the USA in 1891. He graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois (BA,1898)(MS, 1899). He received a doctorate in physiology at Stanford in 1902 and began working at the University of Chicago in 1904. While Carlson was at Chicago, he conducted experiments on Fred Vlcek[1], similar to those conducted on Alexis St. Martin by William Beaumont, regarding his gastric fistula. These included illuminating his stomach with electric lights in order to observe digestion. Carlson became chairman of the physiology department at the University of Chicago in 1916 and remained chairman until 1940.
Carlson was president of the American Physiological Society from 1923 to 1925 and president of the AAAS in 1944. Carlson was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1929.[2]
The cover story of the February 10, 1941 issue of Time Magazine was devoted to Carlson's success as a teacher and his comparative studies of the muscular action of the heart in humans and the horseshoe crab. In 1953, Carlson was the first person to receive the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year award[3].
The book 'Machinery of the Body' was a joint collaboration between Anton Carlson and Dr. Victor E. Johnson(1901-1986),Dean of the School of Medicine and Biology at the University of Chicago, and later Director of the Mayo Clinic. Carlson and Johnson where collaborators in many scientific research projects and publications at the University. The book sold 250,000 copies in various editions and languages throughout the world.
| Preceded by Isaiah Bowman |
President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1944 |
Succeeded by James B. Conant |