Nobel Prize nominees hundred years ago: Abraham Jacobi (1830-1919) and Otto Heubner (1843-1926)

Abstract

Pediatrics directly and indirectly played an important role in the history of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. However, the history of the Nobel Prize and pediatrics goes beyond the actual laureates. Based on original files in the archive of the Nobel committee of physiology or medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, this overview aims to shed new light on why the international pioneers of pediatrics Abraham Jacobi (1830-1919) and Otto Heubner (1843-1926) were nominated but never received the prize in 1918. Moreover, Clemens von Pirquet (1874-1929), one of the founders of this journal in 1910 (previously known as Zeitschrift für Kinderheilkunde), also appears in the Nobel records during the first decades of the twentieth century, nominated by Heubner and others.

Conclusion: We argue that studies of Nobel nominations give new opportunities to study not only the selection process for Nobel laureates, but also to explore which pioneers were seen as the most outstanding at a particular point in time and why. What is known? • Recent historical research suggests that Nobel Prize nominations can help to reconstruct trends in medicine over time. What is new? • This paper takes a new approach on the history of pediatrics and shows why the internationally famous pediatricians Abraham Jacobi, New York, and Otto Heubner, Berlin, were runners-up for the Nobel Prize hundred years ago.

Keywords: Abraham Jacobi; Clemens von Pirquet; History of medicine; History of pediatrics; Otto Heubner; Zeitschrift für Kinderheilkunde.