Karl Gustaf Torsten Sjögren

After graduating from the Gymnasium in Stockholm 1914, Karl Gustaf Torsten Sjögren studied medicine at the University of Uppsala. He graduated from that university in 1918, and in 1925 became a licentiate of medicine in Stockholm. He was conferred doctor of medicine at the University of Lund in 1931.

During the years 1922 to 1927 he held positions in neurology, psychiatry and medicine in Stockholm. He was assistant in the State Institute of Race Biology in Uppsala 1926-1927. From 1929 he had an appointment at the university clinic in Lund, where he trained in psychiatry, and in 1931 became head physician in 1931. From 1932 to 1935 he was head physcian and hospital director at the Lillehagen hospital in Gothenburg, and 1935-1945 was physician-in-chief at the psychiatric department of the Sahlgrenska sjukhuset in Gothenburg. Sjögren was instrumental in establishing the psychiatric unit at this hospital. He was called to the chair of psychiatry at the Karolinska Institutet in 1945, and from 1946 was a member of the scientific council of Medicinalstyrelsen. In 1951 he was elected member of Vetenskapsakademin – the Academy of Science.

Sjögren is remembered as one of the pioneers of modern Swedish psychiatry.

• Die juvenile amaurotische Idiotie. 1931.
  Spielmeyer-Vogt disease.
• Klinische und vererbungsmedizinische Untersuchungen über Oligophrenie. 1932.
• Klinische und erbbiologische Untersuchungen über die Heredotaxien. 1943.
• Genetic-statistical and psychiatric investigations of a West Swedish population. 1948.
• A genetic study of Morbus Alzheimer and Morbus Frick. 1952.