Draft:Vilhelm Magnus


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Vilhelm Magnus (February 13, 1871 – June 27, 1929) was a Norwegian brain surgeon, credited with founding the field of Norwegian neurosurgery.

Early life and education
Vilhelm Magnus was born in the town Arendal, North Prairie, Fillmore Count, Minnesota in the United States on February 13, 1871, as his father, Morten Henrik Magnus, was a priest in the synod of the Norwegian Evangelical-Lutheran church. In 1975 the family moved to Europe and lived in France, Germany and Denmark before they moved to Norway in 1882, and settled in Bergen.

He attended school in Bergen and passed the school examinations in 1889. He went on to study medicine at the University of Oslo in the capital of Norway (at the time named Christiania) and obtained his medical degree in 1897.

Medical and scientific career
After finishing his medical degree, Vilhelm Magnus started his clinical training in neurology at the Department of Neurological Diseases at the Norwegian National Hospital (Rikshospitalet). His tutor there was Professor Leegaard (1851-1921), Norway's first professor in neurology.

From 1889 Vilhelm Magnus went abroad for further medical studies. He first went to Paris to study histology and neurology at the French school of neurology at the Faculté de Médecine at the Université de Paris. In 1900 he went first to Frankfurt am Main (Germany) to study neuroanatomy and neuropathology under Carl Weigert and Ludwig Edinger and to Breslau (Germany) to study experimental embryology under Professor Gustav Born. Stimulated by the studies under Professor Born, he performed extensive experimental research on the function of corpus luteum from a series of experimental investigations in rabbits. Based on these experiments, he presented scientific proofs of Professor Born's hypothesis of an active secretion from the corpus luteum of a substance necessary for the maintenance of pregnancy. Magnus in 1901, was the first to demonstrate the presence of what he called "a diversification factor", which substance many years later was known as progesterone (first isolated in 1934 by Professor Butenandt ). At the time the word "hormone" was not yet in existence (used for the first time in 1905 by Professor Starling ). In September 1901 he published his research on the importance of ovarian function with special reference to the function of the corpus luteum during different phases of pregnancy in the Norwegian journal Norsk Magazin for Laegevidenskaben, however it was Professor Frankel that became internationally recognized for his description of the corpus luteum in 1903 in a paper published in Archiv for Gynäkologie. The lack of international recognition of Magnus' work is probably due to his choice to publish his studies in Norwegian journals.

Vilhelm Magnus took an early interest in clinical neurology and published his first scientific paper dealing with hereditary and familial diseases of the nervous system in 1899. His first manifest of interest in brain surgery was from a series of papers he published in 1903-1904 within the topic of brain tumors and brain surgery. His interest in brain tumor surgery brought Magnus in 1903 to the famous Sir Victor Horsley (1857-1917) in London where he participated in operations in both humans and experimental animals to learn surgical techniques.

Vilhelm Magnus performed his first brain surgery in 1903 for a deep-seated tumor in the left hemisphere in a 47-year-old man with focal epileptic seizures, right-sided hemiplegia and aphasia. The description of the surgery has become a classic in neurosurgery. With this he established Neurosurgery in Oslo and was Norway's first and only neurosurgeon during the first quarter of the 20th century.

During his career he published results on surgery for trigeminal neuralgia, pituitary tumors, subdural hematomas, vascular malformations and brain tumors. Vilhelm Magnus summarised his results of brain tumor surgery in 1926 during the meeting of the Societé Internationale de Chirurgie in Rome in French with the title "Traitement des tumours cérébrales". Here he presented his results with an overall mortality rate of 8% in 161 patients with supratentorial tumors and 17% in 55 patients with infratentorial tumors – a phenomenal result for the time. His results of greatness were recognized by the 20 year younger Swedish colleague Herbert Olivencrona (to become the founder of Swedish neurosurgery ) and the famous American-Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield that came to visit Magnus in Oslo. In 1928, Magnus visited Harvey Cushing (the father of modern Neurosurgery ) in Boston, US. Magnus later wrote how he was impressed by Cushings skills, cautious dissection and surgery free of bleeding and claimed that "At present, Cushing is the undisputed leader in surgery of the nervous system.." . Cushing later indirectly gave credit to Vilhelm Magnus in a letter to Professor Einar Key in Stockholm dated July 6, 1928 where he wrote: "I have just had a most enthusiastic letter from my young pupil, Harley Newton, after his visit in Stockholm . . . . He is most enthusiastic about everything he saw, and says that the clinical work in Norway and Sweden is the best he has seen anywhere." .

Vilhelm Magus suffered an acute myocardial infarction during the dinner at the annual meeting of the Scandinavian Surgical Society in Oslo on June 27, 1929.

Legacy
The research lab Vilhelm Magnus Laboratory for Neurosurgical Research (Vilhelm Magnus Lab) was founded in 1982 by Professor emeritus Iver Arne Langmoen. The lab is named to honour the legacy of Vilhelm Magnus. The research lab is affiliated with the Department of Neurosurgery at the Oslo University Hospital and is a translational research lab with a focus on stem cells derived from the adult human brain and malignant brain tumors.

The Vilhelm Magnus award, that together with the Herbert Olivencrona Award, is considered among the most prestigious awards in neurosurgery, and is awarded annually by the Norwegian Neurosurgical Association to a neurosurgeon or neuroscientist who has made an outstanding contribution to the neurosurgical field.

Recipients of the Vilhelm Magnus Award by year :


 * 2004: Franco Servadei
 * 2005: Bengt Linderoth
 * 2007: Albert Photon
 * 2008: Madjid Samir
 * 2009: Michael Apuzzo
 * 2010: Peter Black
 * 2011: John Pickard
 * 2012: Bernhard George
 * 2013: Juha Hernesniemi
 * 2014: Ossama al Mefty
 * 2015: Graham, Teasdale
 * 2016: Alim-Louis Benabid
 * 2019: Michael G. Fehlings
 * 2022. Aaron Cohen-Gadol
 * 2023: Peter Hutchinson