Recollections from The Department of Medicine,
Umeå Hospital, 1956-1961

Prof Ingmar Bergström Regementsgatan 9 S-831 41 Östersund Sweden reg9.osd@telia.com Ingmar Bergström was born in Stockholm 1920, son of the actor Torsten with roots in the Östersund part of the country and Gurli from Umeå.

This is an edited summary of the original history in Swedish by Bergström. He held the opening lecture for medical students, when medical education started in Umeå January 7, 1959. His main scientific contribution, together with Lennart Jacobsson, was the discovery of congenital dyserythropoetic anemia type III (1,2).

Ingmar Bergström was born in Stockholm 1920, son of the actor Torsten Bm with roots in the Östersund part of the country and Gurli Bm from Umeå. The family network enhanced the recruitment of Ingmar Bergström to Umeå and Östersund.

The Serafimer Hospital of Stockholm provided the training field for Bergström in the period 1948-1956. Research on radiophosphor treatment of myeloproliferative diseases was the topic of his dissertation.

In 1956, Bergström joined the Department of Internal Medicine in Umeå. He had the honor to give the first lecture to medical students January 7, 1959, when medical education and training was started in Umeå. The labor pains preceding the birth of the new university are described in detail in Bergström´s original version in Swedish (Rondellen 2000;5:Kultur).

One main scientific contribution of Bergström, together with Lennart Jacobsson, was the discovery of a family with the hereditary disorder now called congenital dyserythropoetic anemia type III (1,2). The bone marrow picture is dominated by gigantoblasts with up to 12 nuclei. The clinical course of the disease is benign, unless confounded with acute erythroblastic leukemia. The patients have a mild hemolytic anemia.

The dyserythroplasia type III appears to reflex a basic disturbance of cell division. For morphological reasons, the defect is expected to be located in cytoplasmic division, cytokinesis. The observation of Bergström and Jacobsson thus remains a challenge and a point of departure for new genetics and new cytology.

The discovery of the family with the "Västerbotten anomaly" (3) was appreciated by the leading hematologists of the time. Encouraged by the famous Jan Waldenström, Bergström and Jacobsson submitted the final manuscript to Blood, then edited by the dynamic William Dameshek, an impressive and expressive profile of hematology (cf 4).

The Västerbotten anomaly appears to provide a key to future understanding of cell division, its structural elements, their inheritance and function.

Edited and summarized by Bo Norberg

References

1. Bergström I, Jacobsson L. Hereditary benign erythroreticulosis. Blood 1962; 19:296-303.
2. Sandström H. Congenital dyserythropoetic anaemia, type III. Dissertation, Umeå University, Sweden 1997.
3. Undritz E. Sandoz Atlas of Haematology, Ed 2, Fig 48, Frobenius, Basel 1973.
4. Dameshek W, Gunz F. Leukemia. Ed 2. Grune and Stratton, New York 1964.

Updated januari 17, 2001