The archive of the Nobel Assembly for Physiology or Medicine in Solna, Sweden, is a remarkable repository that contains reports and dossiers of the Nobel Prize nominations of senior and junior physicians from around the world. Although this archive has begun to be used more by scholars, it has been insufficiently examined by historians of surgery. No other German surgeon was nominated as often as Ferdinand Sauerbruch for the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in the first half of the (...) 20th century. This contribution reconstructs why and by whom Sauerbruch was nominated, and discusses the Nobel committee evaluations of his work. Political factors did not play an obvious role in the Nobel committee discussions, in spite of the fact that Adolf Hitler in 1937 had prohibited all German citizens to accept the Nobel Prize. The main reasons why Sauerbruch ultimately was not considered prize-worthy were that Sauerbruch’s achievements were marked by scientific priority disputes, and that his work was not seen as original enough. (shrink)

The archive of the Nobel Assembly for Physiology or Medicine in Solna, Sweden, is a remarkable repository that contains reports and dossiers of the Nobel Prize nominations of senior and junior physicians from around the world. Although this archive has begun to be used more by scholars, it has been insufficiently examined by historians of surgery. No other German surgeon was nominated as often as Ferdinand Sauerbruch for the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in the first half of the (...) 20th century. This contribution reconstructs why and by whom Sauerbruch was nominated, and discusses the Nobel committee evaluations of his work. Political factors did not play an obvious role in the Nobel committee discussions, in spite of the fact that Adolf Hitler in 1937 had prohibited all German citizens to accept the Nobel Prize. The main reasons why Sauerbruch ultimately was not considered prize-worthy were that Sauerbruch’s achievements were marked by scientific priority disputes, and that his work was not seen as original enough. (shrink)

“Prizeworthy Research?” Wilhelm Roux and His Program of Developmental Mechanics. The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine is awarded annually to a maximum of three laureates. Not surprisingly, the number of nominees is much larger. Drawing on Nobel Prize nominations in the Nobel archives in Sweden, the core of this paper deals with the nomination letters for the physiologist Wilhelm Roux to discuss competition and some controversies among German physiologists around 1900 in this particular context. The paper elucidates the arguments (...) brought forward to portray Roux as a scientist who had conferred “the greatest benefit to mankind” in the field of physiology or medicine ; examines some other runners-up, and reconstructs why Roux as well as some of his peers were not awarded the Nobel Prize. On a more general level, we argue that an analysis of Nobel Prize nominations contributes to a broader history of excellence in science and medicine in the twentieth century. (shrink)