[Löwegren and Odenius, Hippocrates and Celsus. The medical faculty of Lund, Sweden, around the year 1910].

As in most countries the medical faculty of the University of Lund, Sweden, formerly consisted of a rather small number of professors, twelve at the beginning of the last century. One of these, the ophthalmologist M.K. Löwegren (1836-1923), translated the entire Hippocratic corpus from Greek into Swedish, another, the pathologist M.V. Odenius (1828-1913) all eight books by Celsus on Medicine (De medicina) from Latin. The translation of the corpus hippocraticum appeared in two volumes of a total of 1300 pages in 1909-10, that of de medicina in one volume of 600 pages in 1906. One might wonder if there were special circumstances at that time and place that could explain the extraordinary effort of two aging, retired professors in simultaneously providing outstanding translations of two major medical works from the Antiquity. Though there are indications of a general historical interest in the medical circles in Lund one hundred years ago, neither personal relationship nor cooperation between these two learned gentlemen is on record apart from their membership of the same faculty.