History and Highlights of Finnish Pharmacology

Abstract

In 1640, when Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden, a university was founded in the city of Turku, then the capital of Finland. After Czar Alexander I of Russia, acting on his pact with Napoleon, had seized the country in 1808-09 and annexed it as an autonomous grand duchy to the Rus sian empire, he moved the capital of Finland to Helsinki in 1812. A devas tating fire in Turku in 1827 prompted the transfer of Finland's only univer sity to Helsinki. Other universities were founded after Finland had declared itself an independent state on December 6, 1917.In 1844 a professorship in pharmacy and pharmacology was established in the faculty of medicine of the University of Helsinki. The fi rst holder of the chair, F. J. von Becker, M.D., was appointed in 1854. He had studied pharmacy and pharmacology in G6ttingen, Leipzig, and Vienna, and his re search work covered, among other subjects, the metabolism of carbohydrates and the physiology of digestion, and also the structure, function, and dis eases of the eye and their treatment. Dr. von Becker studied surgery and ophthalmology in Germany and France, and under his influence a professor ship in ophthalmology was founded in the University of Helsinki in 1871. He held the chair from its founding up to his retirement in 1885. As his successor in the professorship, which by that time had been changed to that of physiological chemistry and pharmacology, was ap pointed E. E. Sundvik, M.D., who had carried on further studies in Strass burg and Berlin. Sundvik's research work dealt with, among other subjects, conjugation processes, uric acid metabolism, and many other problems in the physiological chemistry of the living organism. He also was the head of the pharmaceutical laboratory, gave instruction both to students of phar macy and to those of medicine, and was the principal collaborator in the preparation of Pharmacopoea Fennica IV.Finland's autonomy included also its own pharmacopeia.