In September 2026, I was awarded Natur & Kultur's writer's grant for my upcoming two-year project on folk medicine and healing, which takes as its focus point a renowned nineteenth-century healer from my home region, the famous and infamous Erik Aronsson, the Vingåker Doctor.
During the second half of the nineteenth century Erik Aronsson became one of Sweden’s most talked-about healers. A self-taught veterinary practitioner, Aronsson built a reputation that reached far beyond his native Vingåker. Patients travelled long distances to his farm at Vadstorp in search of treatment, while Aronsson himself occasionally travelled to Stockholm to hold consultations. His own celebrated stomach decoction was sold across Sweden and even exported to America. Contemporary accounts and local stories portray a forceful, knowledgeable and decidedly unconventional figure. Aronsson was known for his brusque manner and coarse humour, as well as for his striking appearance: according to one story, an experimental treatment had left his face an extraordinary reddish-purple colour. Whatever his eccentricities, Aronsson inspired remarkable confidence among his patients. Many believed firmly that he had cured or relieved them.
This project uses Aronsson’s life and medical practice as a lens through which to explore the relationship between folk medicine and the emerging profession of scientific medicine in nineteenth-century Sweden. Traditionally trained doctors were few and far between, and their authority was by no means universally accepted. Many Swedes might go through much or all of their lives without ever consulting a physician. Local healers, wise women and men, herbalists and other unlicensed practitioners were often more accessible, familiar and culturally intelligible. Aronsson himself reportedly had little respect for the medical profession — “they think they know everything, but understand nothing,” he is said to have remarked — while doctors regarded practitioners like him with suspicion and increasing hostility. At its heart, the project is a history of trust and authority, language and class, and of how ordinary people understood illness and sought relief. Through the story of the Vingåker Doctor, I want to explore what made a healer credible, why patients placed their faith where they did, and how one brusque country practitioner and his homemade remedies became famous far beyond his own corner of Sweden.
2024 marked the 120 year anniversary of The Swedish Heart and Lung Association, which was founded in 1904 as The National Anti-Tuberculosis society. In the course of 18 months leading up the anniversary, I inventoried and organised their historical material and prepared it for deposit to the National Archives. I also produced around 20 articles based on said material for an anniversary publication which was distributed to members and patrons, and gave internal and external talks about the organization's history.
A sample of my contribution to the publication, a piece on early twentieth century sanatoria, can be found here: Sanatoriet.pdf
In 2022 the Ethics Council at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholms medical university, launched a two-part investigation into the institution's past. Part one consisted of an investigation of KI's memorials and the naming of lecture halls and teaching rooms. Part two, for which we were hired, addressed the presence, history and future of human remains in the university collections. We researched the collection's history, interviewed the experts who work on it, and produced a memorandum for the designated work group. The memorandum is available online, though regrettably only in Swedish.Mänskliga kvarlevor i Karolinska Institutets samlingar.pdf Furthermore, we presented our findings and discussed the possible futures of the collection at a public seminar hosted by the Ethics Council in March 2022.
Published in 2021, Vetenskap och vård. Karolinska sjukhuset 1940-2018 ("Science and care: The Karolinska Hospital 1940-2018") is a biography of Stockholm's first modern teaching hospital. Chronicling its 75 year in operation, the book presents the institution's development and impact in seven thematic chapters. The project was a collaboration with a group of retired doctors from the hospital who set up a repository for recording its history. We were brought in to craft a history from their collected source material, and have given numerous presentations and talks as part of the project.
Sjuk i huvudet, UR series on the history of psychiatry https://urplay.se/serie/244683-sjuk-i-huvudet
Snedtänkt, on medical romances in print and on screen. https://www.sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/om-vita-serien
Bildningspodden, episode on the history of the asylum. https://anekdot.se/bildningspoddavsnitt/72-mentalsjukhusets-historia/
"Dikeskantens lysande klipulverbomb", Under strecket, SvD, 18/8, 2026, https://www.svd.se/a/m0V6p0/ur-dikeskantens-apotek-historien-om-nypon
"Skotsk earl var fånge i Malmö", Populär historia nr 5/2026, https://se.readly.com/magazines/popular-historia/2026-04-09/69b3d65976bc25740431b92f?srsltid=AfmBOoq-tgodQvjf0L9lIwgy0mOO7mzAbeJycPxvpPbTE-tg-hMY4OPp
"Amerikas (och Sveriges) gåva till världen", Under strecket, SvD, 19/4 2025, https://www.svd.se/a/pPkOwV/sa-fick-vi-vaccin-mot-polio
"Kvinnorna som ansågs erotiskt störda", Under strecket, SvD,24/9 2014 https://www.svd.se/a/971b6f83-ae58-3bde-b9bf-5ebbf3ef3b63/kvinnorna-som-ansags-erotiskt-storda
”Från hospitalsläkare till psykiatriker”, Nio-Fem, tidskrift om arbetsliv och profession, https://tam-arkiv.se/sites/default/files/Nio-Fem_nr%201-17_webb.pdf
Under strecket, SvD, https://www.svd.se/a/971b6f83-ae58-3bde-b9bf-5ebbf3ef3b63/kvinnorna-som-ansags-erotiskt-storda
My PhD thesis, Erotic Insanity. Sex and psychiatry at Vadstena asylum, Sweden, 1849-1878, is available open access through DiVA. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1136511/FULLTEXT01.pdf